I have often referred to Facebook as the Internet’s “infinite random trivia generator” – a notion largely derived from the mind-numbing habit of staring at the display – laptop, desktop, or hand-held – and scrolling on, forever thinking that the next post will be something genuinely interesting or profound. OK, maybe the next one. Or the one after that. Or the one… you get the picture.

I have refrained from posting anything on Facebook (OK, maybe a comment here or there…) for the past week.

I suppose you could say that by trying to avoid Facebook I’m actually more fixated on Facebook than if I was just interacting with it normally. Maybe the problem is I just don’t know what ‘normally’ means anymore. But two weeks in to this self-imposed quarantine, I think I can safely say I’m not missing it all that much.

Anyway, here’s what you missed:

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From Monday October 9:

There’s been a lot said both pro and con re: TN Senator – MY Senator – Bob Corker offering some choice observations about the Moron in Chief in the past few days. I tend to fall into “where was he when we needed him?” camp, for reasons that are alluded to in this delectable bit of diatribe from Wonkette– my go-to site for caustic and profane commentary on current affairs:

GOP Sen. Bob Corker Has Only Just Begun To Talk Shit About Donald Trump

The money quote:

It’s true that Corker has done a lot of fucked up things. The race-baiting ads he ran against Harold Ford Jr. in his first campaign come to mind! He is not a hero. But he is doing something important right at this moment. We feel like both of those things can be true at the same time, no?

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OK, so Harvey Weinstein is fat and ugly. Couldn’t he at least shave? #UglyStubble

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Thursday, October 12:

Why do men still wear buns in their hair? You would think with all the ridicule and scorn that has been cast upon man buns that by now they would know better. #NoThatDoesNotLookHip

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Now on to the really important stuff:

It’s discouraging to think that the Cleveland Indians could finish the regular season with the best record in baseball, and then lose three consecutive games to the New York Yankees and be knocked out of the playoffs.

The whole wildcard system sucks. The Yankees could’t even win their division, and yet they get to compete in the ALCS. Did I mention that the whole wildcard scheme sucks? That’s why.

Maybe I just feel that way because I grew up in a time when one team won each league and then went to the World Series. You won the season, you got to go the World Series. There was no “Post Season.” There was just the World Series. Which was played in early October. And during the day. That made a whole lot more sense than than this idea that a second-place team can be the “World Champions” – after playing all the games in the cold nights of late October. Jeezus.

I still think of the Houston Astros as a National League team, so I don’t understand why they’re playing in the American League Championship Series, but at this point, at least they won their division, and they’ve never won a World Series. So I might start rooting for them.

The Astros were originally the Houston Colt 45s, and became the Astros when they started playing in that dreadful Houston Astrodome. For that alone they should be condemned to baseball purgatory, but I’m going to overlook that now that they’re playing in a modern new park – with a retractable roof so they can play outdoors when the weather and Houston humidity permit.

The Astros / Colt 45’s were among the first “expansion teams” in 1962 – the same year the Mets were formed – and the Mets won their first World Series a mere seven years later in 1969. So maybe it’s the Astros’ turn this time.

Anyway, I bought a Cleveland Indians hat and was gonna root for them in the playoffs this year.

Because I really don’t have a personal favorite team any more. I grew up with the Yankees, became a “closet Dodger fan” after I read a biography of Roy Campanella (nobody ever mentions the second black man to play in the Major Leagues…) in the fourth grade, and was a Braves fan for a long time after moving to Hawaii in the 80s (TBS was the only “live” national television station in the Islands for a long time).

But over the last decade or so, my interest in baseball has waned considerably – thanks to the interminable post-season games and the endlessly repeating commercials. Since I got TiVo in 2001, I just can’t sit through commercials anymore. So I don’t really have a favorite team any more and I have no idea who any of the players are.

So when it comes to the post-season and it’s time to try to care a little, I go by the theory of “root for the team that has gone the longest without” winning the World Series. Last year that was the Cubs. who hadn’t won a World Series since 1908 – even though they were playing the Indians, who haven’t won a World Series since 1948.

Now that the Cubs have won a World Series, I figured it’s the Indian’s turn. I bought a cap and was gonna root for ‘em. I got to wear the hat for exactly ONE game before the second-place-in-the regular-season (in other words losers!) Yankees knocked ‘em out of the stupid “Divison Series.”

I think I’m just going to keep wearing my Indians cap in mourning, but root for the Cubs in the National League and the Astros in the American League (that still sounds weird). But I’m not gonna buy another hat.

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Famous questions from the Apple Store: “Do you have a thing that can get the boogers out?” (of an iPhone’s Lightning connector socket).

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Friday, October 13

I keep hearing about a news service called “Axios.” The references treat it likes it’s a credible news service that’s been around for a long time, but I swear I never heard of it until about a month ago. Whathefuck is “Axios” and why is its suddenly getting all this attention?

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Here is my definition of an asshole: somebody who will stand in the middle of an audience, and not even look around to see if he’s standing in front of somebody. Hey, asshole… down in front!

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Saturday October 14:

More baseball: Is it really necessary to a emblazon all the uniforms and caps with a “Post Season” logo? I know it’s the post-season. I don’t have to keep being reminded every time I look at one of the players. #CrappyMarketing

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Sunday October 15:

This is “the Facebook effect” : In the one instant that I look at Fucking Facebook, I see something that somebody I know is photographing Jason is bell at the Ryman. I immediately feel terrible if that’s not me. Fuck you, Facebook.

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I’m pretty tired of hearing people complain about the USB-C ports on the new MacBook Pros. It’s the port of the future. You need adapters to connect to the gizmos of the past. Get used to it and shut the fuck up.

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Well, there ya go. 1200 words worth of witty and profound.

See ya next week.

 

If you’re still using Facebook, here is your required reading for the day:

The many Facebook experiments add up. The company believes that it has unlocked social psychology and acquired a deeper understanding of its users than they possess of themselves. Facebook can predict users’ race, sexual orientation, relationship status and drug use on the basis of their “likes” alone. It’s Zuckerberg’s fantasy that this data might be analysed to uncover the mother of all revelations, “a fundamental mathematical law underlying human social relationships that governs the balance of who and what we all care about…”

Sounds like the “Unified Field Theory” of Human Behavior. Einstein couldn’t find one for physics, so it’s doubtful that Zuckerberg will find one for humans (Humanity: it’d be a great idea if it wasn’t for all the fucking humans…) but he can sure fuck up a lot of stuff trying. And we are all the hamsters in his cage…

And speaking to the point re: the Internet’s effect on our ability to sustain a coherent thought, this article appears in a section of The Guardian called “Long Reads.” But if it’s too long for you, there’s a podcast edition.

 

Here’s all the stuff I didn’t post on Facebook today:

I have been trying for some time now to surmise why just the fact of the Internet / Digital Media / Facebook is making us individually and collectively nutz.

We’re kinda like that scene in “A Clockwork Orange” – the one where Malcolm McDowell’s eyes are held open with calipers and he’s forced to watch something on a movie screen that is supposed to “reeducate” him .

And so it seems we have become with Facebook: Our eyes are forced open, but we’re forcing them open ourselves. And we scroll and stare and stare and scroll, and then post and comment and reply – all under the delusion that millions, or thousands, or maybe even dozens, are seeing what we post. When it’s probably the same five or six or a dozen people…

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Repeat after me: I am powerless over Facebook, and my life has become unmanageable.

At the very least, as I have been saying for some time now, I feel about Facebook the way I felt about scotch and vodka in the months before I finally quite drinking (late November, 1987).

The trouble with recovery from Facebook/Internet addiction is that is much more like an eating disorder than alcoholism. The antidote for alcoholism is (relatively speaking) pretty simple: you quit drinking. Once the “cure” kicks in, you don’t need alcohol or drugs to navigate through the vagaries of life. But you do need food. So while you don’t have to drink, you do need to eat.

One of the precepts of the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous (with which I an quite familiar, nearing 30 years of sobriety around Thanksgiving 2017) is that “half measures availed us nothing.” Meaning: If we’ve got the gene for addiction, then trying to manage our intake is going to be an exercise in futility. Sooner or later we’re going to lose the ability to “moderate” and drive when we really shouldn’t ought to. Or wake up in a gutter. Or just cut to the chase and not wake up at all.

An eating disorder is different, because that has to be managed in a way that alcoholism cannot be managed. You could starve yourself, I suppose, but that would just produce the same result as drinking yourself to death.

And so it appears to be with Facebook. And I don’t mean “websites like Facebook.” Facebook is it’s own unique, globe-encompassing, time-sucking phenomenon. You can try to avoid it, but at best you’re ultimately going to have to manage it. Otherwise, you may as well be… well… dead.

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2,000 years of “civilization” and it’s still hard to find a pedestal table in a coffee shop that doesn’t wobble.

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Now we learn that one of the most prominent and successful movie producers of all time turns out to be a lecherous old man. And we are surprised because…? Oh. That’s right. We’re not surprised.

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There is quite possibly nothing uglier than a pretty girl smoking a cigarette. Or rolling her jaws around with chewing gum. A ring in the nose – the kind that hangs down between the nostrils – is a close second. Sorry, my millennial fans. I guess this is just coming from a lecherous old man.

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Jason Isbell is headlining six hard-to-get-tickets-for nights at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville next week.

Fortunately, I’ve got tickets for Monday night. Unfortunately, they’re downstairs, under the ‘lid’ of “The Confederate Gallery” (I never get tired of saying that) but at least they’re “in the arena.” I much prefer the upper deck, but like I say, getting any tickets at all for these shows was a daunting task. And did I mention, “Fuck you, Ticketmaster. And the “verified fan” gimmick you rode in on.

Anyway, in anticipation of the six-night-stand, The Nashville scene has created an article “Considering Jason Isbell’s Best Songs: A critical look at 10 key tracks from the artist’s solo albums before his six-night Ryman run.”

Each of the listed tracks is accompanied by a YouTube video, which is nice, but I can never understand how somebody can go to all that effort and not bother to put together an actual playlist. So that, you know, you can hear all the tracks sequentially. One after the other. Without having to stop and click after every track.

So I went in and created a Spotify Playlist for y’all. Jason Isbell’s “10 best songs” plus one I also like a lot (“24 Frames”).

You’re welcome.

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So, those are the random thoughts that I might have posted to Facebook if I hadn’t quarantined myself at the start of the week.

I rather like gathering my thoughts through the day and posting them here, all at once – rather than ‘scattering my seed’ all day long with posts and comments and replies – and then “lobbing them over the wall” via the plugin that sends my posts from here to Facebookistan.

That seems somehow consistent with the ‘can’t drink, but gotta eat’ theory.

If you actually followed the link, thanks for stopping by. If you care to add anything too the above, please use the comments here. Let me know if you have any trouble with that.

Because, really, I’m trying to avoid Facebook. Like I avoid scotch and vodka.

Have a swell weekend.

–PS

The largest country on the planet. Also the largest religion. Belief is optional. Also, you can check out any time you want but you can never leave.

Does Even Mark Zuckerberg Know What Facebook Is?

“There are real consequences to our inability to understand what Facebook is. Not even President-Pope-Viceroy Zuckerberg himself seemed prepared for the role Facebook has played in global politics this past year. In which case, how can we be assured that Facebook is really safeguarding democracy for us and that it’s not us who need to be safeguarding democracy against Facebook?”

. . .

“Maybe he’s doing research and development, reverse-­engineering social bonds to understand how Facebook might better facilitate them. Maybe Facebook is a church and Zuckerberg is offering his benedictions. Maybe Facebook is a state within a state and Zuckerberg is inspecting its boundaries. Maybe Facebook is an emerging political community and Zuckerberg is cultivating his constituents. Maybe Facebook is a surveillance state and Zuckerberg a dictator undertaking a propaganda tour. Maybe Facebook is a dual power — a network overlaid across the U.S., parallel to and in competition with the government to fulfill civic functions — and Zuckerberg is securing his command. Maybe Facebook is border control between the analog and the digital and Zuckerberg is inspecting one side for holes. Maybe Facebook is a fleet of alien spaceships that have colonized the globe and Zuckerberg is the viceroy trying to win over his new subjects.”

The idea that nobody really knows “what Facebook really is” is fairly apt.

And Kara Swisher is pretty full of shit. Maybe not all the time, but definitely this time.

I’ve been trying to avoid the news today. But just a moment ago I took a one-minute scroll through Facebook and learned that Tom Petty is dead, or near enough. “Full cardiac arrest, no brain activity, DNR” etc etc.

He was 66.

For a moment, that news provided a diversion from the day’s dominant story: yet another mass shooting event, this time in Las Vegas. 50+ killed and hundreds injured (mostly probably from the ensuing stampede) when somebody opened fire from a 30th floor hotel window onto an open field filled with a crowd for a country music festival, headliner Jason Aldean running from the stage once he figured out what was going on.

And so once again all the typical responses… the meaningless “thoughts and prayers,” the relentless outrage, the exhortations to talk about gun control -v- the exhortations to not talk about gun control “so soon” after so many people have been senselessly slaughtered by the kinds of weapons that nobody should have access to, at least not legal access, but then you know how that works, if guns are outlawed yada yada yada…

So this morning when I started to do my typical mindless scrolling… I just realized, “today is the day that Facebook became insufferable.”

And then I had to resist the temptation to actually put that thought on Facebook. I’m sure it would have offended a lot of people who felt righteously, grievously offended that so many people they never knew had been killed, because that’s what we’re all conditioned to do now when this happens again and again and again and again etc ad infinitum ad nauseam…

Later in the day, I thought of something that I read or heard about Hugh Hefner after he had his last wank last week at age 91. Somebody pointed out that Hefner had made his fortune largely “on masturbation.”

Now, I would say, that Mark Zuckerberg is the contemporary equivalent, though not strictly in the literal sense.

It is almost ironic that Facebook doesn’t permit anything that is even slightly, obliquely pornographic (i.e. “no female nipples” – regardless of their “artistic” merit), because arguably all of the content on Facebook is some form of mental masturbation.

It is a billion people a month (many several or even dozens of times a day) “getting off” on their own expressions of moral outrage, or gentle metaphysical platitudes, or pictures of their babies, or whatever the fuck floats their boat.

With a user base measured in the billions, Facebook creates the illusion of an audience of thousands when in most cases – i.e. those that are not already celebrities and thus have a large “social media following” (George Takei comes to mind, and remember he got his start being a spaceman on TeeVee 50 years ago) our posts only show up on a few dozen other users feeds. It’s somewhere between an echo chamber and a masturbatorium – a word I had never heard before the actor Brian Cox used it in a scene from the movie “Running With Scissors” : “You can’t go in that room, that’s my masturbatorium”.

Facebook is a masturbatorium that we let everybody in to.

Anyway, when I looked at Facebook this morning, it just seemed like a relentless rerun of years of self indignation. With every post I felt like “where have I seen this before?” Oh yeah, right here on Facebook the last time. And the time before that. And the time…

So… fuck it.

One of the things that got me hooked on Facebook years ago was when web browsers started to offer the “pin tab” feature – where you always had a small tab conveniently situated on the edge of your browser window for websites that your return to often.

Once THAT feature was enabled, I basically had Facebook at my disposal all the time. It was just one click away. It was like when I discovered “one hit pot” back in 1969. I’ve been stoned on Facebook ever since.

And that (I think) was before it all went mobile, and Facebook became the thing that I went to almost impulsively on my phone. Wait, who am I kidding? “Almost impulsively?” No, it was definitely impulsive. Like a rat in a cage, pushing the button for another endorphin pellet. Dozens of times a day. I supply the content, Zuckerberg gets the money. Who are we kidding.

And don’t even start me on the fucking Russians.

Lately I’ve been saying “I feel about Facebook the way I felt about scotch and vodka just before I quit drinking (almost 30 years ago).

And today, I dunno, something just finally snapped.

I closed all “pin tabs” on my browsers.

And I deleted the Facebook app on my phone. I replaced it (in the dock on the bottom of the home screen) with the podcast app. Maybe I’ll listen to more podcasts.

But I did go back to Facebook for a minute, just to confirm my suspicions. But instead of gun-violence induced righteous indignation, I got the news that Tom Petty had a heart attack and died at age 66.

Well, fuck me, I’m 66, too.

Or, wait… maybe he’s not dead?

Oh, fuck it. Ya just can’t believe anything any more.

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Update 171005: Yes, I violated my own quarantine and posted a link to this from my Facebook page. Save one comment re: Scott Kozicki needing a haircut, I have not posted anything to the Infinite Random Trivia Generator all week. If you care to comment on what I have written/posted above, please share those sentiments in the comments section here. The boycott now resumes…,