Category Archives: Freakin’ Idiots!

July 29, 2016 · 23:56

Adulting Sucks

That was my first conclusion tonight, but I think there’s more.

“Adulting” can be defined (at least by me) as “acting like the adult in the room, being responsible, keeping calm and reasonable – when what you really want to start smacking a bunch of freakin’ idiots upside the head with a baseball bat because they’re freakin’ idiots and really, really deserve it.”

Most of you know what I’m talking about.

Remember those times you had to count slowly backwards from twenty-five in Klingon to avoid spending some time as a guest of the city, county, state, or federal penal system? Yeah, those times.

This week has had more than its fair share of those moments, and today in particular felt like just one after the other.

So – adulting sucks!

Which is fine. Having recognized the universal truth therein, we somehow manage to muddle through to a better state of mind, even while we wonder why those freakin’ idiots are hit by a bolt of lightning out of a clear, blue sky. (Not enough smiting being handed down by a wrathful god these days, if you ask me!)

But why does it feel so much worse all of a sudden?

It came to me while flipping past the news. (As a side note, I would kill for a pill that I could take so I wouldn’t have to listen or see any political news until mid-November.)

The reason we go around adulting when we really want to go around slapping some sense into stupid people is because of the penalties involved. At best, people think we’re a flaming asshole and we’re socially shunned. (Except perhaps by other flaming assholes, but who wants to be around them?) We don’t want to be kicked out of the herd just for breaking social norms.

Abandoning our adulting ways could have permanent effects on our ability to earn a living, to have friends, to have people who can stand to be in the same room with us. As bad as adulting sucks, the consequences imposed by society for not adulting are much worse.

Unless you’re a current candidate for the US Presidency and you’re a smug, crude, ignorant, delusional, racist, hate-filled, misogynistic, jingoistic, pea-brained, dim witted, congenital liar who wants us to believe he’s the next coming of Christ and Buckaroo Banzai all rolled up into one.

This disgusting waste of flesh not only wouldn’t know adulting if it bit him in the ass, but no matter what he does, no matter how clinically insane, he has no negative consequences. His fortunes just continue to rise and rise and rise.

So why should we have to adult when he doesn’t?

And there we find the next level of the problem. We adult because people who don’t disgust us. But now an army of minions, most of whom are as racist, bigoted, ignorant, and clueless as their leader is, are crawling out from under their rocks and making our world a mess. They had been hiding in the dark with the slime molds, where they belong, but now it’s fashionable for them to come out into the light of day where they we have to put up with them and even more of their bullshit.

While we’re busing adulting and trying to carry on because we’re sane and good, despite the rising tide of hatred and ignorance.

Not enough smiting. I’m telling you, someone’s asleep at the wheel.

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Filed under Freakin' Idiots!, Politics

June 17, 2016 · 22:11

A Not-So-Friendly Warning

There’s a very large brush fire burning into its third day about 100 miles to the northwest of here. Dozens of houses have burned, whole towns are in the fire’s path, Highway 101 between Southern and Northern California has been shut down with flames on both sides of the road, and the “sundowner” winds have been gusting every night, fanning and spreading the inferno. As of tonight it was 20% contained, but there were concerns that it could get completely out of control again if the winds didn’t die down.

This morning, with the winds shifting from the north, LA was brown and smoky, over 100 miles away. I guess that’s not as surprising as it might have been a few weeks ago, when we saw that huge fire in Canada spreading smoke all the way to Atlanta.

As if that isn’t enough, it’s going to be a scorcher all over the US SouthWest this weekend. We’re expecting 94°F tomorrow, 104°F on Sunday, and 109°F on Monday. Up there in the fire zone, aside from, you know, the radiant heat of thousands and thousands of acres burning in your face, it’s only supposed to be 97°F.

On the other hand, in places like Phoenix, Arizona, it’s supposed to be 119°F on Sunday, and I notice that the forecast there is for the highs to be 112°F or above for the next nine days, as far as the current forecast goes out. There are whole swatches of this part of the world that are expecting the highest temperatures EVER RECORDED at those recording sites. Not the highest temperature on that day in history – the highest temperatures ***EVER*** recorded at those spots.

Then I saw the news that the very last recording station on Earth that was still seeing CO2 levels under 400 parts per million has finally reached that symbolic level. It’s in Antarctica, about as far away from anything human as they can put it. The last time the CO2 levels hit this height was over four million years ago. From this point onward we almost certainly will never see any spot on Earth recording less than that in our lifetimes. Or our children’s lifetimes, or their children, or their children…

All of that made me think that, in an effort to be totally transparent and up front with everyone, I should let y’all know:

If you ever, EVER come to my site, my timeline, or my face wanting to tell me that CO2 isn’t causing climate change (100% bullshit), that human activities aren’t driving that CO2 increase and climate change (unbelievable 100% bullshit), that scientists haven’t really proven that there’s climate change (you’ve got to be freakin’ kidding me 100% bullshit), that it’s “just a theory” (bullshit 100% ignorant of any clue what the scientific method is or what the word “theory” means), or anything along those lines, I will as politely as I can ask you to piss off and never darken my door again.

If you’re stupid enough to ignore that request (and I’m betting you are if you’re spewing any of the aforementioned bullshit) then I will do everything I can to show the world what a moronic, ignorant, clueless, illiterate, uneducated, imbecilic, cretinous, witless buffoon you are. I don’t for a second think that any of the mountain of evidence and facts that I’m going to shower on you will change your mind, but the rest of us will have fun laughing at you and pointing.

Then I will block your ass and take whatever measures are necessary to never hear from you again. Life’s too short to spend it putting up with the intentionally ignorant.

For those who think this is a policy which stifles a free exchange of ideas – get a clue. Look up “false equivalency” for starters. Put simply, if I say 5+5=10 but you think that 2+8=10 and someone else says 15-5=10, we can discuss how each of us got to ten. On the other hand, if I say 5+5=10 but you say 5+5=37.89927837128 because there’s a conspiracy founded by some secret society and the aliens are really running the whole thing, then we have nothing to talk about and it’s a waste of breath for me to do so.

I just wanted y’all to know!

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Filed under Disasters, Freakin' Idiots!, Los Angeles, Politics, Weather

June 9, 2016 · 22:19

Getting Ahead

Actually, a lot more head than I bargained for.

There’s a new chain of cheap inexpensive hair salons. Since I don’t require a lot of fancy styling skills, cheap is good.

Take a look at any picture of me on here or other social media sites. I keep my hair short and uniform. A “number two buzz cut, all over.” For those who actually spend money, time, and effort on their hair, buzz cuts come from one-half to eight, one-half being the shortest, eight being the longest. Apparently some people get it buzzed on the side but leave it longer on the top, so I learned long ago to say “all over.”

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Something like this, perhaps? I think not. “All over” it is.

It’s a brain dead stupid and easy haircut to give. For the record, if I could see in back to do the final trimming, I would get a set of clippers and do it myself. How could anyone mess it up?

Well, let me tell you…

This new place is fancy in that they remember how you got your hair cut last time. So my stylist gets a little slip to read, a scouting report of sorts.

“Okay,” she says, “last time you got a number one buzz cut, all over. Is that what you want this time?”

“No, last time I got a number two buzz cut, all over. That’s what I want again this time.”

“Okay, a number one buzz cut, all over. You got it.”

“Wait, stop.” I hold up two fingers. “Not a number one, a number TWO buzz cut, all over.”

“Oh, okay, a number two buzz cut, all over.”

“Right.”

So she fiddles with the little clip on guards they put on the clippers to keep it uniformly a certain distance from your head. No matter what or where, that’s how long your hair is going to be. She moves around behind me, I look in the mirror, and she starts mowing.

About the time that she got the first good swipe that went all the way to the front where I could see it, it was clear to me what she had done. I might have had my eyes widen in surprise (or I might have let out a blood-curdling scream) because she stopped.

“Oh, no,” she said. “You wanted a number two, not a number one?”

“Well, I guess NOW I want a number one!”

File Jun 09, 21 54 57

File Jun 09, 21 55 26

File Jun 09, 21 55 51

Yeah, that’s really short. I guess if I ever wondered about actually just shaving it all to look like Yul Brenner or Telly Savalas, this w0uld be an excellent time for it.

As the Captain said in “Cool Hand Luke,” “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate!”

(So really, I’ll get myself a set of clippers – for the price of two haircuts I’m set for life. Even if I can’t trim up the back, how could I mess it up any worse than this?)

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Filed under Castle Willett, Freakin' Idiots!, Paul, Photography

May 31, 2016 · 23:26

Stupidest Ads On Television, May 31st

While I can be a huge fan of extremely clever and well-made advertising (they’re like little thirty-second or sixty-second movies!), I am most definitely NOT a fan of having my intelligence insulted by advertising.

Today’s case in point – the new AT&T ads for their internet services. The first one is here, if you wish to expose yourself to it. The second is worse. We’re praying that there aren’t any more, but given how long their previous incredibly stupid ad campaign ran, I wouldn’t bet on it.

We get it. We’re all addicted to the internet and it’s inconvenient when it goes down. Your service is supposed to be more reliable than everyone else.

Are we supposed to make the personal connection to the family in the ad? Because, c’mon! They’re simple minded, pathetic, losers, a complete waste of skin and oxygen! Anyone who is freaking out THAT BAD when the internet is down for four minutes needs some serious psychiatric help and probably some pharmaceutical assistance.

Do you really want us associating ourselves with characters that are reduced to turning into Peeping Toms, watching the neighbors through the windows to see what cat videos are being watched, just because the internet’s been down for fifteen minutes?

Do you not see that we are well aware of how sad and meaningless these characters’ lives have become? Do you not think that our first emotional response to your ad is revulsion? With our skin crawling and us grabbing desperately for the remote to change channels EVERY TIME one of these ads comes on, do you really think that we’ll want to utilize your services?

It gets worse.

Their big tag line at the end is that AT&T’s services (which of course you’re going to be dying to use because you’re so impressed with that family of mundane morons) is that the AT&T internet service is 99.9% reliable. Imagine that! 99.9%! Three whole nines!!

Except – we can do 3rd grade math. 24 hours a day times 365.25 days a year is 8,766 hours a year. If AT&T’s service is 99.9% reliable, then it’s unreliable and down (thus turning you into our aforementioned family of freaks) 0.01% of the time.. That’s 87.66 hours a year, over three and a half days a year, that their service is down. Right?

I’m no huge fan of Time-Warner Cable, but here in our area they’re down two or three times a year, for a couple of hours or so each. That’s maybe six hours, seven hours a year?

So AT&T is advertising that they’re 99.9% reliable? How about advertising that they’re ten times as unreliable as Time-Warner Cable? (Hey, they’re their numbers, not mine!)

I guess that might not sound as good. But don’t worry, we’ll spin it the right way and get away with it because people are morons, right?

Good work, whatever ad agency thought up this one! Next time, hire a third grader to double check your math.

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Filed under Entertainment, Freakin' Idiots!

May 17, 2016 · 23:19

Is Your Window Broken?

I’ve mentioned that I often eat lunch sitting in my car. You see weird things there sometimes.

Today was a lovely day. A little bit too much breeze to sit outside at the picnic tables, so it’s off to the car. 77° F.

File May 17, 23 09 18 smallImage courtesy of the Weather Channel app.

Yet I saw no fewer than three people, all of them in expensive SUVs that cost five or more times what my car did, sitting in their car, eating lunch, WITH THE WINDOWS ROLLED UP, THE ENGINE RUNNING, AND THE AIR CONDITIONING ON!

Climate change? No problem, I’ll just sit here in my $100,000+ urban assault vehicle and burn a gallon or two of gas to cool down the interior of my car while I eat lunch — because it’s ungodly freakishly sweltering at 77° and I’m to freakin’ stupid to roll down the freakin’ windows!!

Anyone want to bet that they also complain about what lousy gas mileage they get?

Listen, if it’s 77° Celsius, I’ll be out there running the A/C with the best of them. But 77° Fahrenheit with a nice breeze and not a cloud in the sky? Let me recommend a very good therapist, ’cause y’all need your heads examined!

Freakin’ idiots!!

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March 15, 2016 · 23:20

Windows 10 Is Doing What?

Imagine my surprise, when just yesterday the “critical download” to upgrade to Win 10 showed up and I made a point of marking it as hidden and telling Windows Update that I did NOT want to upgrade.

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Someone (a tech support guy) told me today that they didn’t think this was really happening. It was just hype on the internet. Boy, have I got news for him!

This should be “interesting” – for sufficiently terrifying values of “interesting.” Especially since one of the key programs I use, QuickBooks, will only work with Win10 if you have the 2015 or 2016 version. I have the 2013 version.

Is it too late to pull the plug and install Ubuntu?

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Filed under Computers, Freakin' Idiots!

March 2, 2016 · 21:05

Robocaller Defense – The Final Solution

I’ve ranted a couple times about spammers, scammers, con artists, robocallers, and political campaign calls (which often fall under the category of “spammers, scammers, and con artists – but I digress) and how annoying I find them. It’s not nearly so bad since I went back to work, mainly because I’m just not here to be bothered by the phone going off. I go through the voice mailbox once a week or so and clear out the dozens of junk calls and verify that there’s nothing legit in there, then move on.

It has occurred to us that since only about one out of twenty or thirty calls is actually legitimate, where “legitimate” is defined as “not outright bullshit,” there are reasonable questions regarding the utility of the landline. Even of the “legitimate” calls, probably 99% are those which could easily go to either my cell phone or The Long-Suffering Wife’s cell phone.

The phone bill has crept up and up, mainly through neglect on our part I expect, and today I finally reached the breaking point. I bit the bullet and dove into the septic quagmire which is AT&T “Customer Service.”

I cut the cord. I turned off our landline.

AT&T doesn’t make this easy.

You can’t do it online.

You must have strong Google-foo to find a phone number to call to terminate service.

When you call it and spend nearly five minutes fighting your way through the Byzantine maze of menu choices, there’s a message that says, “We’re sorry, but due to unforeseen circumstances beyond our control, customer service is unavailable at this time. Please go to att.com/BlahBlahBlah to take care of any of your customer service needs.”

Which, of course, you can’t. See above.

So you try again in an hour. Same result.

And again in an hour. Same result.

Finally giving up on that course, you go back to the website, where a little chat box opens up. Someone wants to help me!

(The following is an approximate version of my journey through hell this morning.)

Can you help me terminate my local home landline service?

Of course I can!

Answer dozens of questions to prove I’m me.

Am I moving?

Nope.

Why do I want to end the service?

$75 a month for nothing but robocallers is nuts. I’m tired of being insane.

Would I like to downgrade to a package for $50 a month that doesn’t include voicemail and this and that?

Does it include a way to block the robocallers? No? Then please terminate my service.

Would I like to downgrade to a minimal package for $25 a month that doesn’t include long distance?

Does it include a way to block the robocallers? No? Then please terminate my service.

Would I like to switch to a U-Verse and VOIP and high-speed internet package? That’s available in my area.

First of all, no, it’s not available in my area. That’s a different nightmare that AT&T put us through for years. But, speaking hypothetically about this U-Verse and VOIP and internet package – does it include a way to block the robocallers? No? Then please terminate my service.

Maybe we could…

Stop. Please terminate my service.

I just want to make sure…

TERMINATE. MY. SERVICE. NOW.

Okay, let me see who I can transfer you to who might be able to do that.

Stop. You told me ten minutes ago that you could help me terminate my local home landline service. It’s right here in the chat transcript.

I am helping. I’m going to give you a phone number to call.

Is it 800-288-2020?

Yes.

I’ve already done that. Three times. They’re having a bad case of circumstances beyond their control.

That’s impossible.

That’s what I said, but that’s why I’m here. They’re not there.

Try calling again…

HOW ABOUT I SIMPLY STOP PAYING MY BILL EVER, EVER AGAIN?

I’m trying to connect you to someone who can help you.

You said you were the person who could help me and you’ve now wasted fifteen minutes of my time and are currently trying to shuffle me off to another department where they’ve already failed three times this morning. Do you have a supervisor there I can yell at?

One moment please.

(Nearly five minutes later, when I had pretty much figured that he had simply gone away…)

How can I help you?

READ. THE. TRANSCRIPT.

Okay, I will put you in direct touch with the department you need. You won’t have to wait in a long queue or re-enter all of your information. Please wait for a moment and I will call you.

(Phone rings)

Imagine my surprise when it turns out that “Patrick G” has an accent much more like Rajesh Ramayan Koothrappali, Ph.D. than Patrick McGoohan. He connects me to someone with a US Southern drawl. Who promptly asks me to start over explaining who I am, what I want, and verifying that I’m me.

After five minutes, he finally figures out that I live in California! He’s in South Carolina and he can’t access my information from there. (So much for interstate commerce or AT&T’s ability to link any of those pesky computer-thingies together.) I get transferred.

Next is a “dude.” You can practically hear him waxing his surfboard in the background. At least he’s in this area. And yet again I get to explain and verify.

Am I moving? Am I sure I want to turn the phone off? What if…

CAN. YOU. DO. THIS. OR. NOT?

Yes, but…

TERMINATE. MY. PHONE. SERVICE. ***NOW***

Well, alright, if you’re going to be like that. Would you like to have your calls forwarded to another number for the next thirty days?

Would the robocalls get forwarded also?

Of course.

NO.

Okay, it’s done. Do you have any other questions?

Yes, I do. How about, “Why did this take over forty-five minutes once I actually was able to contact someone?” Or maybe, “With this pathetic excuse for customer service, why in hell do you think that I would conceivably want to ADD more services instead of getting rid of the one I have?”

I’m hoping for a customer satisfaction survey where I can express myself in more depth.

In the meantime, if you need one of us, call our cell phone, or send a text message, or send an email, or post a comment here, or use Skype or FaceTime, or tie a note to the back of a messenger lizard.

Just don’t call the house.

Unless you’re a robocaller. Then you can call all day long.

“Doo-dooo-DOO! We’re sorry, the number you have called is no longer in service or has been disconnected.”

Bite me, robocallers.

And the AT&T you rode in on.

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Filed under Castle Willett, Death Of Common Sense, Freakin' Idiots!

March 1, 2016 · 22:06

Not A Coincidence

On my little commute to work I have something like eight gas stations that I pass most mornings. (There are a number of primary variations on the route since this part of the world is flat and has lots of very orderly north-south and east-west streets, so I don’t necessarily pass every one of them every day.) There are two Chevrons, a Mobil, two Union 76, a Shell, an Arco, and two “independents.” Last week I made an interesting, if hardly original, observation about their pricing policies and timing.

Last Wednesday night, I noticed another significant drop in the posted gas prices. Unleaded regular, self serve, debit-cash-company card (heretofore known as “gas”) was down to $2.13/gallon, the lowest I’ve seen it here in SoCal since March, 2009. Mind you, that’s still almost a dollar a gallon higher than the rest of the country, but that’s a different rant. I saw that exact same price on every single one of those gas stations, except for the Arco which is still doing their cash-only experiment and typically is fifteen to twenty cents cents cheaper than everyone else. They were at $1.99/gallon.

Thursday morning it was $2.39/gallon. Not at one station mind you, but at every single one of them, except for the Arco – which was back up to $2.19/gallon or something. (I tend to ignore Arco since I tend to be as cashless as possible, so I’ll ignore them from here on out.)

Thursday afternoon it was $2.49/gallon. Not at just one or two…

Friday morning it was $2.59/gallon. Not at just the Mobil or just the Chevrons…

Saturday morning it was $2.69/gallon. Every. Single. Station.

If I didn’t know better I might just think that pattern is not the result of pure market conditions, the proverbial “invisible hand” that Mr. Smith postulated. I just might be tempted to think that maybe all of those humongous, multi-national, mega-billion dollar companies were working together to screw us over.

Good thing that we’ve got the balancing force of our government to regulate those semi-monopolies and protect us little folks from being taken to the cleaners with no recourse or other options! Good thing that the good and altruistic members of our state and federal government, executive, legislative, and judicial branches included, all are working hard at keeping a tight rein on any possibility of any corporate shenanigans!

Wait… What?

I am soooooo disillusioned! If I’m not careful, I could become cynical.

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Filed under Freakin' Idiots!, Los Angeles, Politics

February 20, 2016 · 23:17

Thanks, CalTrans!!

I’ve written about the kind of disaster a 30-minute drive from home to the CAF hangars in Camarillo can turn into when there’s a major accident on the one main freeway that goes in that direction. Today my 30-minute drive got turned into a 65-minute drive by a different type of disaster – CalTrans.

CalTrans – the California Department of Transportation. Or, in this case, the California Department of Pissing Off Tens Of Thousands Of Travelers & Burning Millions of Gallons of Gasoline for No Damn Good Reason. (I guess it doesn’t just roll off the tongue that way.)

In brief, I tried to get on the freeway. Blocks from the onramp, the main street I was on was gridlocked. I assumed there was some problem between me and the onramp, so I doubled back a mile to the previous onramp. More gridlock as I approached the onramp. Double back another two miles to the previous previous onramp. More gridlock, and I can see that traffic on the freeway is almost completely stopped. I manage to at least get onto the freeway and start crawling back to the west, which is at least better than sitting on the streets a half mile from the onramp and going absolutely nowhere.

Is there a major accident on the freeway like there was in November? A brush fire? A bridge collapse or some other catastrophe?

A half hour later, the problem is obvious. Some genius at CalTrans decided that 9:00 on Saturday morning was a good time to close three of the four lanes for a couple miles to do routine maintenance.

Nope, couldn’t make this shit up.

Wouldn’t you think that this sort of thing would normally be done at night or some other time when the freeway wasn’t being used by a couple hundred thousand cars? Even if you had to do it at night, wouldn’t you be warning people for days and weeks in advance with signs on the freeways and onramps?

Well, you might think that, but the brainiacs at CalTrans apparently missed that small bit of common sense.

This weekend out in Riverside County, sixty or seventy miles away, the 91 Freeway is closed in both directions for two days for some major construction. They’ve got a cute name for it (“Coronapocalypse,” since it’s in the Corona area) and they’ve been on the news, in the papers, freeway signs even out here, two counties away.

Last weekend they had a similar thing through downtown LA to demolish a bridge passing over the freeway, and again we got bombarded with warnings to avoid the area and maps of detours for those who couldn’t avoid it. They had a cute name which I can’t remember.

A couple years ago they had complete freeway closures in both directions for three days for the first time, in this case on the 405 Freeway through Sepulveda Pass, one of the busiest freeways in the country. It was “Carmageddon!” and for two months beforehand we couldn’t go ten minutes without hearing about how bad it was going to be and how far away we needed to be to avoid getting cooties.

When they’re going to be working on an offramp – a simple, one-lane, out of the normal flow of traffic freakin’ offramp! – for a few hours, there are warning signs up for days and weeks in advance.

But close three of four lanes on Saturday morning and cause a backup that goes close to ten miles – SURPRISE! Gotcha!!

Freakin’ ididots!!!

And then they dare to be bewildered when the average person holds them in utter contempt.

As for the (presumably) “major repairs” that necessitated this disaster? They were working on a long strip, maybe two feet wide, in the middle of the #4 lane, all the way up the hill there. Rather, they had a long, long strip marked off with spray paint markers. They had two, maybe three crews of four or five guys digging out patches of that strip. Was the pavement torn up there and in need of repair? Nope. It looked like nothing more than them laying some sort of pipe or cable down the middle of the lane, which makes no sense whatsoever.

Look on their website – no mention, no explanation. Look for news reports or warnings I might have missed – nothing found.

“Hey, it’s Saturday morning – let’s see how many random strangers we can infuriate and make an hour or more late for no reason other than we can! We’re CalTrans, we’re here to help!(*)”

(*) – only for very bizarre and inaccurate definitions of the word “help”

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Filed under Death Of Common Sense, Freakin' Idiots!, Los Angeles

February 16, 2016 · 22:42

Are You Freakin’ Kidding Me? – February 16th

I heard about this on the morning news as we were getting up this morning – figured it had to be a hoax. Apparently it’s not.

Paul McCartney, Beck and Taylor Hawkins turned away from Grammys afterparty

Are you freakin’ kidding me?

Okay, if you run into Paul McCartney in a completely out of context time and space, say, in the frozen food section of Ralph’s on Sunday morning when you want nothing more than to get your bag of Tater Tots and get home to watch the football game, I can see that you might say to yourself, “Wait, that guy looked familiar! Was he…” But by then Sir Paul is off into the organic vegetables and your Tater Tots are rapidly thawing and you never really know, but you’ll always wonder.

If you’re the bouncer at a top-notch, über-trendy nightclub on a Wednesday night in January in San Francisco or Dallas and some dude comes up and wants in, claiming to be Paul McCartney, your job is to be skeptical. Maybe this guy’s just a really, really good Paul McCartney impersonator! You’ll lose your job if you let him in and he’s a fake! In short, it sucks to be you, but maybe you could have him sing a bar or two of “Yesterday” or “Eleanor Rigby.” If it sounds like him, let him in! If it’s really him and your boss fires you anyway, then your boss is an asshole, you need to find a better job anyway, and you got a personal concert from a freakin’ legend! If it’s not him and you get fired, then you probably weren’t cut out to be a bouncer and you should go find a job as a politician, where good judgement is not only not called for but is often a career killer.

On the other hand, let’s get real! You’re the bouncer at a top-notch, über-trendy nightclub on Grammy Night in February just blocks from where the Grammy ceremonies were just held. Inside the nightclub are a zillion heavy duty music industry icons, hosted by folks who just performed on stage at the Grammy Awards. Some guy who looks exactly like Paul McCartney, sounds exactly like Paul McCartney, and claims to be Paul McCartney comes up and you turn him away?! Not just once but twice, because you want to prove to the world that you’re consistently clueless?

Are You Freakin’ Kidding Me?

The excuse I’ve heard is that he was young and didn’t know who Paul McCartney was or what he looked like.

Too young? Oh, so they had a one-year-old working as a bouncer?

He didn’t know who Paul McCartney was or what he looked like? Then why in hell was he working as a bouncer at a post-Grammy Awards party?!

It boggles the mind, and new questions arise from the boggling process.

Would he have let Taylor Swift in? Beyoncé? Kanye West? Would he have known and recognized any of them?

Would he have let Paul McCartney in if he was with Taylor Swift, or Beyoncé, or Kanye West? (Note that the more sane, and mature, among us would refer to it as Taylor or Beyoncé or Kanye with Sir Paul, not the other way around.)

Would he have let Paul McCartney in if he was with John Lennon? And would he even understand why that’s a rhetorical and silly question made solely for the point of satire and exaggeration?

Kids these days!

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