Michael Estrin's Blog, page 18
February 15, 2023
Super Klutz | Big Fudge Up | AI Surfer Eats It
Photo by Steven Thompson on UnsplashAt the end of the first quarter, with the Chiefs and Eagles tied at one touchdown apiece, Christina got up from the couch and announced that she had decided to take a bath.
“I have enough time before halftime, right? I wanna see Rihanna.”
“You’ve got plenty of time,” I said. “Each NFL-minute is the equivalent of five Earth-minutes.”
Christina went to the back of the house, leaving me and Mortimer alone in the living room. Little did Christina know that leaving the two of us unsupervised would prove to be a really bad idea.
At first, I tried to focus on the game. But that was difficult because Mortimer wouldn’t shut up about his Puppy Bowl glory days. Eventually, though, the edibles I had eaten earlier kicked in. Mortimer’s bragging faded into the background. The game faded into the foreground. And my mind drifted to some of the deeper questions raised by watching the Super Bowl broadcast.
Did anyone watching the Super Bowl broadcast actually point their phone at the screen to scan the commercial’s QR code?
How many of those QR codes loaded PDFs of outdated restaurant menus?
Why did Jesus buy so much Super Bowl ad time?1
Could a Super Bowl ad featuring Zeus and the Mount Olympus crew bring back polytheism?
Are polyamorous people cool with polytheists, or is that just too much of a good thing?
Are we paying too much attention to bread & circus distractions like the Super Bowl, when we should be focused on important stuff, like democracy, climate change, and figuring out what the deal is with those UFOs our government keeps shooting down?
Are the UFOs some sort of extraterrestrial earned media stunt timed to coincide with the Super Bowl?
When our aliens overlords finally get here, are they going to make us use their dumb QR codes, or have advanced alien civilizations figured out a better way to attribute their advertising dollars?
Is there a connection between hatred of the Philadelphia Eagles, hatred of the rock band called The Eagles, and America’s decimation of the actual eagle population?
Was it time to break out the popcorn?
The answers to the first nine questions escaped me. But the answer to the tenth question was a resounding yes. So, I got up from the couch and went into the kitchen.
Because I love popcorn, I had purchased a bag of organic popcorn with extra virgin olive oil from Trader Joe’s a few days before the big game. But because I really love popcorn, I had decided to hide that bag in the cabinet where we keep the fancy glasses that are reserved for when we have company over.
At the time I hid the bag, I thought I was playing it safe. But as I reached up to retrieve the popcorn, I knocked over a wine glass. As soon as the glass shattered into a thousand pieces, I realized that my idea of “safe” left a lot to be desired.
Thankfully, there weren’t any injuries like there were last time. But there was a lot of broken glass scattered across the kitchen floor. Also, I wasn’t wearing any shoes, and neither was Mortimer. I froze in place and told Mortimer to do the same.
“Hey honey,” I called out. “We need a rescue.”
“Are you OK?”
“Yeah, just a lot of broken glass. Can you put on your shoes? I need you to come in here and get Morty, then bring me my shoes.”
“OK. Give me a minute.”
As it turned out, Christina was using the standard NFL-minute. So for the next five minutes, I stood there barefoot, surrounded by broken glass, trying keep Mortimer from walking around by indulging his bullshit story about how some Chihuahua named Groucho Barks had robbed him of the 2012 Puppy Bowl MVP award.
Eventually, Christina entered the kitchen. She was wearing her underwear, and her hair was still wet. But she had her tennis shoes on, which was more than I could say for myself, or my four-legged friend.
“Are you OK?”
“Yeah, we’re fine. Grab Morty and put him in the bedroom.”
“Roger that.”
Christina scooped up Mortimer and carried him away to safety. Then she returned with my shoes, a broom, and a dust pan.
“Sorry I ruined your bath.”
“You didn’t ruin my bath. I was drying off when I heard the glass break.”
I put on my shoes, while Christina began to sweep.
“You’re going to write about this aren’t you?”
“Probably.”
For a moment, I thought about how I’d tell this story. For some reason, that scene at the end of Clerks where Silent Bob explains the meaning of love to Dante popped into my head.
There are a million fine looking women in the world, I told myself, but they don’t all come running in their underwear to rescue you and your dog from a mess of your own making.
That was true, but the Clerks reference felt a little random and a little dated. After all, this was Super Bowl Sunday 2023, not a random day in the 1990s, when two slackers, one of whom wasn’t even supposed to be there, closed the Quick Stop to play roller hockey on the roof. So, I decided then and there that when I did get around to writing about this dumb episode in the next Situation Normal, I’d cut the Clerks stuff, even though that movie totally holds up.
ANYWAY, it turned out, most of the broken glass was in the kitchen, but the blast radius extended into the living room and dining room, too. To be fair, however, that’s what we call an Open Floor Plan Problem, as opposed to a Stoner Hiding the Popcorn with the Wine Glasses Problem.
Together, we cleaned up my mess, then I vacuumed the area just be safe. The whole thing only took three NFL-minutes. After we were done, Christina dried her hair and got dressed. Then she joined me and Mortimer on the couch to eat some popcorn and watch Rihanna’s halftime performance.
Big Fudge UpI’m just going to come out and say it: I fudged up.
Last Wednesday, I forgot to shout out the new paid subscribers to Situation Normal. I’m really, really sorry about that.
I’d like to make you a promise to never let a fudge up like this happen again, but I think we all know that promise is a lie. Situation Normal is a great newsletter, and it’s totally worth paying for, but let’s be honest, there’s a reason the internet’s 57th best humor newsletter, hasn’t cracked the top ten.
Please accept my apologies, situation normies. And if you’re one of the paid subscribers listed below, feel free to suggest an appropriate act of penance. And now, without further ado, here’s a list of awesome people who decided to pay for Situation Normal:
Bo, who knows newsletters.
Tab, who sometimes shares the charcuterie board ads that have haunted his web browsing experience ever since I wrote about going to a stranger’s home to buy cheese, and this community gently pointed out that what I’d really purchased was a charcuterie board.
Sherman Alexie, who appears to be the same Sherman Alexie who won the National Book Award for writing The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.
Bill, who is an Eagle Scout, according to his Substack profile, and is therefore in some position to shed light on the anti-Eagle agenda referenced above.
Mike, who took the time to write me a nice note about allocating a portion of his newsletter budget to Situation Normal.
Marlene, who left a lovely comment after my mom trolled me and my Situation Normal shout out policy.
Molly, who didn’t capitalize her name in her Substack profile, but nevertheless gets the capital M treatment here.
Jamie, whose profile says he moved to Austin in 1978 for the music and the girl, and who has been married for 44 years. Congrats!
Ruth, who wisely splurged on the founder subscription, which includes free rides to doctors appointments in Los Angeles County (easily the best subscriber deal in the newsletter game).
Marcelo, who is blessed with a really cool name.
Want a Situation Normal shout out? Upgrade to a paid subscription, so I can acknowledge your contribution to helping the internet’s 57th best newsletter thrive👇
AI Surfer Eats ItLike a lot of people, I’ve been playing around with some of the artificial intelligence tools that are all the rage these days. My dream is to outsource Situation Normal to an AI version of me, so that the real me can spend my days sitting on a beach with Diehard’s Alan Rickman, earning twenty percent on our bearer bonds.
Sadly, I don’t think my dream is going to happen. For one thing, Alan Rickman is no longer with us. Also, the bearer bonds in Diehard are a great MacGuffin, but in practice, they don’t make much financial sense. But the main obstacle to my dream of outsourcing myself to some naturally funny artificial intelligence is that the tech just isn’t there. Case in point: I asked an AI art tool to make me a picture of a surfer eating a taco, and here’s what it gave me.
Sometimes you eat the taco. Sometimes the taco rides a surf board that spears you through the heart. ICYMII teamed up with and to create some satirical Super Bowl ads for Vince McMahon, the Memphis Police Department, and the NFL. Our Super Bowl satire ran way too long, just like the real Super Bowl. But unlike the actual game of football, our ads don’t cause brain damage.
Stick around and chat!Usually, I like to end these posts with some discussion questions. But my Super Bowl Sunday / broken glass story already has ten questions. Please take a crack at some of those, especially the polytheism and UFO questions👇
Until Sunday, when I’ll share a milestone post! 1
February 12, 2023
Apologia at the Super Bowl
Dennard: We’re sorry.
Those words hurt, because you think you have to mean them. There’s another way.
At Apologia, we understand your pain. As Virtuosity, we were targeted for our beliefs, actions, and intent to continue. But by convincing the world we both learned and grew, we put the moralists and prosecutors behind us. And discovered our passion for emergency brand surgery.
If you’re watching this, you’re in the shit. All the way in the shit. It’s already at your neckline, and this is the last video you’ll see before drowning. You can sink, or take our hand.
A good ad on a small screen won’t change anything. You need a masterful ad on the biggest stage possible. You need Apologia at the Super Bowl.
Call us. We won’t wait long.
Dennard: WWE headquarters! What a beautiful building. The nandrolone fountains are a nice touch. Would a man without love and respect for his employees put one on each floor? Don’t answer that, unless you’re sure this room isn’t bugged.
We’re all lifetime fans of your work, Mr. McMahon. These are my colleagues, Amran and Michael. Specialists in turning moral frowns upside down. Unless any sexual assault investigators are listening. Then we’re Publicis.
Amran: It’s an absolute honor and privilege to meet you, Mr. McMahon. Nobody’s overseen the premature deaths of more of my childhood heroes than you. Except maybe a client we’re meeting later. But they didn’t make human meat grinding look as fun.
Michael: He’s not kidding. My childhood dream was to have my bones crushed in the ring. Sadly, I have a bum knee, so no meat grinder for me. But I have a new dream: to clear your good name, Vince.
Dennard: In short, we believe in both your innocence and undead cage fighters. All that’s left is convincing the world.
Mr. McMahon, my proposal speaks for itself. Please focus on this video trailer, and not our intern. She’s very uncomfortable, and we don’t have funds to bury an incident.
FADE IN
INT. MCMAHON ESTATE
NARRATOR
Young Rock showed you Dwayne Johnson’s HGH-free childhood, SARM-free rise to stardom, and inevitable presidency.
But what about wrestling’s greatest legend? The face of creativity and consent? Where did his legend begin?
The father of wrestling’s father, VINCENT J. MCMAHON, enjoys his patriarch chair. He has a commanding aura, but lacks the kindness and bulging traps of a true leader.
VINCENT J. MCMAHON
I feel like doubting a budding genius today. If only…
YOUNG VINCE rides into the living room on a tricycle. His free hand does 80 lb hammer curls.
YOUNG VINCE
Paw-paw! I invented another new phrase! Can it be on your show?
VINCENT J. MCMAHON
Let’s hear it.
YOUNG VINCE
“No means no.”
VINCENT J. MCMAHON
It’s not quite there, son. The world’s not ready for your nutty ideas.
YOUNG VINCE
Oh paw-paw, I wish you’d believe in me. Hopefully that changes by the season finale.
VINCENT J. MCMAHON
It just might, son. It just might.
NARRATOR
See the friendships that shaped the feminist icon.
INT. MOTEL LOBBY
STILL-YOUNG VINCE enjoys a quick deadlift set in the motel lobby. The weight is impressive, yet humble. His friend JIMMY SNUKA enters, with an armload of white roses.
JIMMY SNUKA
Whatcha thinkin’ about, boss?
STILL-YOUNG VINCE
Consent.
JIMMY SNUKA
Nice. Could you help me carry these flowers? I have three bouquets for my wife, but only two arms.
STILL-YOUNG VINCE
Anytime, Jimmy.
STILL-YOUNG VINCE grabs a bouquet in his teeth and continues deadlifting. He shatters his record, which happens to be the company record.
NARRATOR
Watch the trials he overcame on the way. Personal, non-criminal trials.
INT. STADIUM HALLWAY
FOREVER-YOUNG VINCE paces backstage. One of his precious employees is missing. Could they be hurt? Dead? He curls nervously, at half his usual weight. Then NOT-RITA CHATTERTON enters, yawning.
FOREVER-YOUNG VINCE
Call time was an hour ago! Where were you?
NOT-RITA
Satanic book group. We’re reading about trapping innocent billionaires. It’s fascinating stuff!
FOREVER-YOUNG VINCE
You know I love reading and monogamy. But I need your head in the game.
NOT-RITA
Of course, mark.
FOREVER-YOUNG VINCE
What was that?
NOT-RITA
I love felony perjury.
FOREVER YOUNG VINCE
What was that?
NOT-RITA
Of course, boss.
NARRATOR
America may not want Young Vince. But it’s getting Young Vince.
FADE OUT
Vince, there are three things you learn in a crisis.
First thing is, you’re fucked.
Second thing is, you need to hire the best people to unfuck the situation ASAP.
Well, the world’s best emergency brand surgery team is here, Vince. And since we’re here, I’m going to tell you the third thing you learn in a crisis. Ready?
People have short attention spans. Very short. Shorter than the gnats Christopher Nolan cast in Memento.
What’s that? You just Googled it, and there weren’t any gnats in Memento.
Vince, bubala, you’re so much smarter than the other sex criminals we’ve rebranded. Of course there weren’t any gnats in Memento. That’s exactly the point! We want to change the subject. Instead of the conversation being about all the dark shit you’ve done, and let’s face it, probably are still doing, we’re going to introduce a distraction.
The Super Bowl of distractions!
Now, our research shows only twelve percent of Americans support the idea of men wearing tights. As you can probably guess, those people are a collection of purple-haired Marxists, soy boys, and MSNBC viewers. These are not your people, Vince. But they are the people trying to cancel you. What we want to do is co-opt these people. But we need a wedge issue, or in your case, a wedgie issue.
Vince, we want you to normalize tights for men.
Wait! Before you put me in a headlock, Vince, I want to make two points.
First, the social justice warriors who are trying to cancel you have a real soft spot for anything that looks like dismantling the patriarchy. Creating space for men to cast off the shackles of traditional masculinity is the Achilles high heel for that crowd.
Second, you’ve been normalizing tights for decades! Our data shows twenty-nine percent of American men hold a secret desire to wear tights, just like their favorite wrestlers! You know what that means, right? There’s a silent majority just waiting for a champion to normalize tights.
With the right Super Bowl ad, you can be that champion, Vince. We can activate the tight enthusiast silent majority, while simultaneously co-opting a segment of social justice warriors to carry water for you as they enlist as allies in the movement to normalize tights.
Wait! Please don’t head-butt me until you hear about the ad, Vince.
OK, here’s the pitch.
It’s you, Vince! You’re doing all the things you normally do, but you’re wearing tights.
In the first scene, you’re telling a retired wrestler you’re not responsible for the injuries he sustained while wrestling for the WWE. He cries because he’s having trouble walking without a cane and can’t remember his name sometimes, but you tell him to “man up.” Then you notice his tears are landing on your tights. You think about punching him, but you show mercy. You give him the tights off your butt. He smiles and says, “Thank you, Vince, for empowering me to live my truth as a male tight enthusiast.”
In the next scene, there’s a beautiful woman standing in the middle of a wrestling ring. You ask her for consent, but she says no. You respect her answer because this is the Vince McMahon rebrand. But then she notices you’re wearing tights. She changes her mind. As the two of you make sweet, sweet love against the trembling turnbuckles of the wrestling ring, she says, “Real men wear tights.”
In the final scene, we’re in the WWE boardroom. The board is talking about selling the WWE to MBS, or Elon Musk, or some other evil dipshit. It’s humiliating, quite frankly. We need a real man — a man who wears tights! That’s when you burst into the boardroom, Vince. There’s smoke, and strobe lights, and some awesome theme music because that’s how real men roll. And you’re wearing tights, of course, but unlike the tights you wore in the previous scenes, these tights are an American flag print because PATRIOTISM! The camera lingers on your Old Glory tights and the glory that is your consent-activated package, Vince. It’s a powerful image, and with the right social media strategy we’ll make sure everyone is talking about Vince McMahon’s powerful, consent-activated package.
Anyway, back to the scene. You grab your daughter by the hair and lift her up out of the chairman’s seat, then throw her across the room. Immediately, the company lawyers start with their hostile work environment crap. But you silence them by pointing your massive finger at them. The lawyers melt — literally melt — in the face of your raw power, Vince. Some of the melted lawyer goo gets on your American flag tights, but it doesn’t matter. You’re here on a mission to normalize tights. You snap your fingers, and everyone who has survived this boardroom massacre takes off their pants to reveal: tights!
We linger for a beat to take in the board’s newfound balls, before you take your rightful seat at the head of the table and say, “You can’t put a price on normalizing tights, just like you can’t put a price on freedom!”
Let’s frame this in language you’ll understand, Mr. McMahon.
You’re the fearless, white-meat babyface. The hero fans pay to see go over. You make men cheer, women swoon, and kids dare to dream.
Problem is, poor creative and worse booking have buried you. Now you’re the delusional heel and marks can’t cough up money fast enough to see you get squashed.
Impressive, huh? At Apologia we’re more than just pretty faces.
What you desperately need is a “face turn.” Luckily, the answer’s hiding in plain sight.
FADE IN
INT. MRSOOL PARK, RIYADH
Bayley, Becky Lynch, and Charlotte Flair are engaged in a legendary triple-threat match. All three lie dazed and disoriented in the center of the ring. As they simultaneously stagger to their feet the raucous arena goes pitch black.
When the lights flicker back on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — aka MBS — stands in the center of the ring, flanked by Bill Goldberg, Hulk Hogan, and Brock Lesnar. Each brute hoists a now unconscious female superstar over their shoulder.
MBS says, “Vince McMahon. How dare you poison my Great Kingdom with your American propaganda.
“Women’s equality? Ha!
“I’m taking these strumpets to my Red Sea sex dungeon. Try to stop me, Vince McMahon. If you dare!”
Vince runs down the ramp but the dastardly heels escape. He falls to his knees, buries his face in his hands, then looks directly at the camera and roars, “This misogyny will not stand.”
INT. DIVE BAR
Vince sits alone at an empty bar. One by one Dana White, Jerry Lawler, Greg Hardy, Ray Rice, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Tyreek Hill greet him. They christen themselves the Seven Chivalrous Samurai.
“Those brave and totally capable women need our help,” Vince says. “And nobody cares more about brave and totally capable women than Vince McMahon.”
“Anyone lays hands on a woman, they’re a coward in my book,” Dana White says.
“Chicken shit,” Stone Cold Steve Austin agrees.
“These paternalistic and chauvinistic cats need to get got,” Greg Hardy says.
“Then what are we waiting for?” Tyreek Hill asks.
EXT. RED SEA PALACE
The Seven Chivalrous Samurai shout “For our better halves!” and parachute out of a fighter jet and land directly in front of MBS’s backup palace.
They battle through hordes of faceless foreign thugs — think Helm’s Deep times a thousand — with bare fists, Samoan drops, and vertical suplexes.
At the main entrance Vince picks up Tyreek Hill and tosses him through the door, Colossus and Wolverine-style.
INT. RED SEA SEX DUNGEON
Vince kicks down the steel door to the sex dungeon. The three scantily clad heroines hang in cages from the ceiling.
The Seven Chivalrous Samurai stare down Goldberg, Hogan, and Lesnar. MBS cowers behind. An all-out brawl ensues!
Lesnar and Vince break from the pack. Lesnar lunges at Vince but he adroitly administers a Johnny Cage-esque low blow. Lesnar howls like Liu Kang, then Vince delivers three F-5s and a Tombstone piledriver.
With Hogan and Goldberg defeated the Seven Chivalrous Samurai surround MBS. He begs for mercy, but Vince lifts him above his head, breaks his back like Bane, and says, “Nobody molests my female talent but me.”
Dana White quips, “Mohammed bin Salman? More like Mohammed been bitch-slapped.”
The Seven Chivalrous Samurai and the three strong, independent, totally capable women laugh and hug and high-five then raid MBS’s luxury car garage and head to the U.S. embassy for extraction.
FADE OUT
We’ve cast Riz Ahmed as MBS and Michael Bay’s down to do his best RRR impression.
Digital de-aging tech can do amazing things these days, Mr. McMahon. The only question now is: are you in?
Dennard: I try not to be too prescriptive with a new client, since it can start things off on the wrong foot. But on our way here, four officers performed a “Doomsday Device” on a jaywalker. And quite frankly, I hate to say it, but you need more of that.
Michael: But with better footage. These low-res body cams aren’t cutting it. The people want police brutality in 4K.
Amran: Agreed. Also, you can’t show weakness to the Marxist mob. Dennard walked in here unscathed, which means you’re shirking your responsibilities. I already feel less safe.
Dennard: My lawyer’s disappointed, and so am I. I wore a vest here for nothing. There’s even a defibrillator in my briefcase.
Ads are nice, but normalizing violence gets you silence. Have you considered using the Magic Killer? BTE Trigger? Triple Powerbomb? We just finished working with Vince, we can help.
Think of your media backlog. Or bucket list. Or just the chores waiting at home. How are they?
Bloated beyond usefulness? Intimidating to think about? A grey blur of stuff? That makes sense, because it’s how human brains work. We can only process so much.
Right now everyone’s focused on one little murder. Because one’s easy to track.
Let’s change that.
FADE IN
EXT. BALD EAGLE PRESERVE
CHIEF DAVIS spins a football on her fingertip, and then passes long to a LOCAL CHILD. The ball strikes the LOCAL CHILD in the forehead, knocking them to the floor. Motionless. The shot quickly returns to CHIEF DAVIS, who radiates warmth and professionalism.
CHIEF DAVIS
Isn’t football great? One ball, two syllables. Nothing taxing.
In the Memphis Police Department, we strive for excellence. It’s a long, difficult to spell word. But worth the effort.
This year, we hit a bump in the road. We’ve taken a life from the community. And we know that forgiveness is also a long, difficult word.
To make it easier, we’re coming clean. We’re releasing our complete, alphabetized, and tagged archive of officers stepping over the line.
Every speed trap beating. Every bribe from a local organ salesman. Every teenager given a warning shot to the knee.
And yes, every officer-involved shooting. A long, difficult term for murder.
That’s where trust starts. It might be hard to wrap your head around it all. You might not even bother. You might seize up and tremble before the sheer scale of the Great Blue Wall.
That’s fine.
Because choice is important. You could sort through ten years of the Scorpion Unit hunting civilians, or enjoy the spring. We’ll never take that choice away from you again. New incidents will join the pile as they unfold.
What matters is I’m on your side. We have an open, honest relationship. And like any relationship, one of us is happy.
FADE OUT
Look, I’m not gonna sugarcoat this.
Sometimes an enterprise is so fundamentally corrupt, its core so thoroughly rotten, and its original purpose so utterly grotesque, improvement becomes an impossibility.
Think Blackwater. Or Great Britain.
Its only path forward is to acknowledge — no embrace — its raison d'être.
So what’s my advice for the Memphis PD? Stay the course.
Resolution is a myth. Change is for the weak-willed. Progress implies a lack of conviction.
However, there’s value in pragmatism.
The woke, radical leftists will never accept your extrajudicial methods — no matter how righteous — and the MPD can’t afford to sacrifice perfectly capable officers for following their organizational mandate.
Intractable problems call for revolutionary solutions.
Luckily for the good people of Memphis, breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and video editing technology make it possible to alter the very fabric of reality.
Let’s say — hypothetically — one of your gangs accidentally administers irreversible justice again. Mistakes are bound to happen.
Now, imagine a scenario where — instead of showing cowardly goons mauling a perceived super predator — MPD body cams and CCTV cameras depict admirable heroes engaging in single combat with an actual super predator.
How? you ask.
Cocaine Bear.
The most important American film since Citizen Kane hits theaters nationwide on February 24. We’ve already spoken with the head of marketing at Universal. They’re airing a brand new trailer during the first quarter, amplifying engagement with a full social media advertising blitz, and — like most gutless, cynical corporations — are clamoring to support law enforcement personnel.
Cocaine Bear’s “based on true events,” which means “documentary” to Americans and “synergy” to us.
We create and release “found footage” videos of people encountering and succumbing to Cocaine Bear during his vicious rampage — à la The Blair Witch Project — and pay Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter to push their “viral” buttons.
By kickoff the snippets will have billions of global impressions.
At halftime every God-fearing patriot with an AR-15 will be manning their windows.
Then, midway through the third quarter we flip the script, and show the entire nation why the MPD’s mission and military-grade equipment are so critical.
We re-release the footage of the Tyre Nichols execution as a full two-minute TV spot. But this time we replace the departed young man with a CGI version of Cocaine Bear.
What do viewers see now?
Certainly not five dark match jobbers battering, bludgeoning, and brutalizing an unarmed, defenseless, 145-pound kid with Crohn’s disease.
No, they see a mammoth, Herculean, life-or-death struggle between MPD’s finest and the Volunteer State’s most dangerous mammal — a deadly beast which just so happens to have snorted an entire brick of Columbian snow.
All that bear spray looks justified when there’s an actual amphetamine-soaked bear involved, amirite? Especially since our new footage ends with one officer bleeding out, two dealing with lacerated limbs, and Cocaine Bear absconding toward a wealthy white suburb.
By the time Eagles’ fans are burning couches Governor Lee’s office will have declared a state of emergency, authorized martial law, and — with “great reluctance, but great confidence” — reinstated the SCORPION Unit and granted it statewide jurisdiction.
A ferocious, unstoppable killing machine’s trafficking foreign narcotics and endangering the lives of Memphians, Tennesseans, Americans.
A locked and loaded MPD’s never been more important to national security.
You hit send on that wire transfer and we start doctoring footage.
That’s the Apologia promise.
Nothing changes. We used to be Virtuosity, before a crisis made us Apologia, but we’re the same talented scoundrels we’ve always been. Speaking of scoundrels, you’ve got more than a few bad apples, am I right?
Take it easy! And please put down your tasers and guns. Jeez, I meant it as a compliment, one scoundrel to another.
Point is, why fight your nature? You recruit people who have a power trip kink, and you supply them with U.S. military hand-me-downs. Violent attacks on innocent people isn’t a bug, it’s a feature!
But what if, and just hear me out, instead of brutalizing innocent people, the Memphis PD brutalized annoying people?
First scene. It’s a crowded parking lot. We follow a Toyota Corolla as the driver looks for a spot. The Corolla’s rear bumper is littered with leftist propaganda: Black Lives Matter bumper sticker, rainbow flag, Medicare for all. Clearly, this car is so far left, it’s incapable of making a right turn. But there’s a bigger issue: some annoying asshole in a pickup truck took two spaces, leaving this social justice warrior with nowhere to park and nobody to turn to.
Enter the MPD!
An armored police van rolls up to the scene with lights and sirens. Officers dressed in body armor jump out of the van. Without being told, they see the problem, and they act.
Two officers place an explosive device on the pickup truck, while a third officer runs a line from the explosives back to the command truck.
Meanwhile, inside the Corolla, our social justice warrior mutters some leftist propaganda about police overkill. But before he can say, “Defund the Police,” we hear a giant BOOM!
The explosion knocks the pickup truck back into its own space. But more importantly, the blast knocks some sense into our leftist friend.
“Thank you, MPD,” he says, before pulling into his parking space.
Second scene. A woman works in her garden. Her yard is decorated with the usual woke lawn signs. Hate Has No Home Here. Defund the Police. Vote. On the mailbox, we see the name of the people who live there: Ferguson.
Mrs. Ferguson’s phone rings. She checks the caller ID. It reads: “Scam Likely.” Mrs. Ferguson sends the call to voicemail. A second later, her phone rings again. “Scam Likely.” She sends the phone to voicemail for a second time. But the phone rings a third time. Out of frustration, she picks up.
“I’ve told you scammers to stop calling me,” Mrs. Ferguson says.
Cut to: a rundown office park on the other side of town. Inside one of the office buildings we see an army of scammers working the phones. We zero in one scammer.
“This isn’t a scam, Mrs. Ferguson, this is your bank. We’ve spotted some suspicious activity on your account, but before we can help you, I’ll need your email address, password, social security number, mother’s maiden name, blood type, and a notarized power of attorney…”
Just then, we see a janitor enter the frame. At first glance, it looks like the janitor is minding his own business, but as he mops the floor he inches closer and closer to our scammer.
“And how do you spell your mother’s maiden name, Mrs. Ferguson?”
There’s something different about this janitor. He’s built like a linebacker. He moves like a ninja. And he’s wearing a tiny earpiece.
“Great, great. You’re going to get a text message in a moment, Mrs. Ferguson. I just need you to click the link so I can access your account.”
The janitor presses his hand over the earpiece.
“It’s a go. Take ‘em down. Now!”
The janitor unscrews the long wooden mop handle. Carefully, he uses the handle to brush the scammer's headset off his head. The scammer bends down to pick up his headset. Just then, the janitor pounces. Using the mop handle, the janitor beats the shit out of the defenseless scammer.
Suddenly, all hell breaks loose. Lights. Sirens. Screaming. Shooting.
We cut to: the bloody aftermath of an epic shootout. The call center is littered with the bodies of dead scammers. Our janitor, who now wears his MPD badge on a chain around his neck, is on the phone with Mrs. Ferguson.
“No ma’am, that wasn’t your bank. They were scammers. But don’t worry, the Memphis PD is on the case.”
Third scene. A crowded movie theater. Everyone is enjoying the feature presentation. In the darkness, a cell phone rings. A man near the front answers. By the light of his glowing phone, we see the annoyed faces of his fellow moviegoers. People shush, but the man doesn’t care. Someone gets the manager, but the man keeps talking, until…
The MPD SWAT team bursts into the theater. They take up firing positions in front of the screen, crouching low so they don’t block the movie. Unlike their target, MPD SWAT has manners.
A red laser dot appears on the man’s forehead. One of the officers whispers, “Hang up the phone and put it on airplane mode for the duration of the movie, dirtbag.”
The man has been warned, but he doesn’t care. He just keeps talking…but not for long.
We hear the metallic clink of a gun with a silencer, then the man’s head explodes in a red mist.
The audience bursts into wild applause. They can watch the movie in peace, thanks to the MPD.
Dennard: It’s almost the big day! Twenty-four hours where America cares more about the ball than the human carrying it. How do you want to spend that time? It’s your last chance to convince America that football shouldn’t join cockfighting and Miranda Rights in the dead past.
Amran: It’s surreal being here. One of my biggest regrets is only acquiring high school football-level brain damage. If I’d just been a little faster, and a lot bigger, I wouldn’t have to watch my kids become teenagers.
Michael: Where are we again? Sorry, I played college ball. Division III, but the concussions still slap.
Dennard: See? Thanks to football, I haven’t paid out bonuses in five years. That’s worth saving.
Gentle reminder: everything here is Apologia’s IP until money changes hands. Vince tried a shortcut, and had to settle out of court. Much like his love life.
This one comes straight from Steve Bannon’s playbook, so you know it’s legit. Here’s the plan: flood the zone with shit. Gentlemen, we’re going to flood the zone with so much shit nobody will remember that your gladiator league is bad for the gladiators. We call this campaign, “Everyone got CTE from everything, except from the NFL.”
A little background. After our PR crisis landed us in legal hot water, we learned, we grew, and along the way, we developed some great relationships with the underbelly of the legal community. Well, gentlemen, that underbelly is ready to suit up for you and kick ass. We’ve put together an All-Pro team of lawyers led by Bill Barr, Rudy Giuliani, and Michael Avenatti, assuming he makes probation, for the Super Bowl of class-action lawsuits.
Who are we suing? Actually, the question is, who aren’t we suing?
Our legal dream team will represent anyone, against any entity, on any claim, no matter how frivolous, as long as that claim alleges that a non-NFL defendant is liable for causing CTE.
All we need to get started is a toll-free number for clients to call, an actor to play the doctor in the ad so it looks legit, and a few client testimonials gushing about how much money there is in filing a CTE claim. And your approval, of course!
What’s that? No, no. The NFL logo won’t appear in the ad. There won’t be any mention of football. The goal is to drag every other American institution, company, and school board down to your level. It’s like Vidal Sassoon told me after I lost my hair: if they don’t look good, you look better!
No, no. We’re not hiring an A-list director. We need authenticity. That’s why we’re outsourcing the creative to an agency that does all those personal injury lawyer ads. Something like this:
What? You’re worried the ad will look cheesy? Yes! That’s the point. This isn’t just an ad. It’s a real law firm, filing real frivolous cases.
How does that help? What part of flood the zone with shit don’t you understand?
Gentlemen, instead of defending the NFL, we’re putting everyone else on the defensive. Cars cause CTE, OK? Sugar causes CTE. Critical race theory causes CTE. Understand now? Everything causes CTE, and everyone has CTE. Because if enough people believe that, then there’s nobody to blame for CTE!
Some people are simply haters.
They dwell on the negative, fixate on flaws, and refuse to see the sunny side of life.
No, I’m not talking about myself.
Some people are so out of touch, and so concerned with “virtue signaling,” they don’t recognize their own hypocrisy. They call the world’s greatest sport “barbaric” and “exploitative” then do Simone Biles-caliber mental gymnastics to justify why they tune in every Sunday.
I said I wasn’t talking about myself.
These proselytizing blowhards obsess over trifles.
Like how NFL players rarely receive guaranteed contracts, which makes them expendable to their teams and incentivizes playing injured.
Or how NFL players suffer injuries and concussions at orders of magnitude higher rates than all other professional athletes.
Or how the league’s own Executive Vice President of Football Operations compared the combine to a slave auction.
Or how one severely flawed and extremely biased study — conducted by researchers with an agenda — found 92% of the brains of fallen NFL players exhibited signs of CTE — an “ailment” invented by researchers with an agenda.
Big surprise: these moralizers get triggered every time a player almost dies on the field too.
The problem with these pearl-clutchers is they don’t realize incessantly focusing on what’s broken makes them downers.
For the last fucking time I’m not talking about myself!
Their blind naysaying makes it impossible to see the many upsides and immense privileges afforded to NFL players. Like fame, fortune, and leaving behind a handsome corpse.
So let’s concentrate those bloviators' attention on the positive — for once. Let’s lean in to your workforce’s self-mutilation. Let’s celebrate these gladiators’ willingness to pay the ultimate price for our entertainment.
Here’s how we do that with a taut, thirty-second TV spot.
A blank screen and a brief moment of silence give way to the NFL’s iconic “shield.” It fades to black then a video montage of the mythical Greek warrior Achilles begins. Think a few frescoes but mostly highlights of Brad Pitt in Troy.
Voiceover provided by the legendary James Earl Jones kicks in and says, “Throughout history, few men have achieved immortality.”
Then a photo collage of Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson cycles.
“Glory demands sacrifice.”
Next we see black-and-white footage of Wehrmacht Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s heroic exploits in North Africa.
“Greatness has a price.”
Finally, a video montage showcases Junior Seau’s most rugged, bone-shattering, brain-scrambling tackles — JACKED UP! style.
“Some see flames extinguished too early,” Mr. Jones says. “We honor stars who simply burned brighter.”
Fade to black.
Boom!
Tell me you’re not dying to don a helmet and smash your head into a wall until your brain turns to mush right effing now.
In psychology this device is called reframing. And while your players’ prefrontal cortexes are too battered to process such a concept, we can still change the minds of the sulky, college-educated globalists hosting the Big Game for their friends and neighbors.
Color me an optimist.
We can be honest in here.
The whiners are right about one thing: this sport is a glue factory for people. Everyone can see it. Bright young men are beaten into monosyllabic zombies in real time. Some would even call that the appeal.
We can deny that reality, or use it. Every game, someone turns into a swole mannequin. But what else happens? What can we guarantee per cadaver? How can we judo tragedy into goodwill?
We prove you care.
FADE IN
EXT. JUNKYARD
A once-great ATHLETE sifts through cans. His mind is gone. ROGER GOODDELL watches from his charity Bugatti.
A lone tear runs down ROGER GOODELL’s cheek. A manservant dabs his cheek with a wad of international bills. GOODELL, in touch with his emotions, swats it away. He needs to let himself feel this. Then he can act.
ROGER GOODELL
We can’t do this anymore.
We can’t ignore the science. We can’t ignore the victims. We can’t put empty profit ahead of humanity.
We can’t sit back and watch the planet die.
Our players agree. Battered grey matter should serve a planet in crisis, not distract from it. The National Football League has to do better.
I’m proud to introduce the National Forest Legion. A program planting trees for every brain damaged or destroyed on the field.
For every lab-confirmed case of CTE, we’ll plant a beautiful maple.
For every player crippled by other means, we’ll plant a utilitarian bamboo grove.
For every domestic incident, we’ll plant a romantic willow.
And for every fallen hero of the game, we’ll plant a strong, enduring redwood.
What’s your part? What do you have to do, to be an ecological hero?
Nothing at all. Just keep watching, and stop complaining. Do your part for Gaia, and let us worry about the rest.
FADE OUT
Amran: Job well done, fellas. Now I’m certain you should never meet your heroes.
Dennard: Well said. There’s nothing like seeing the smile on a client’s face, and knowing that no one can stop us now. Not even God!
Michael: Speaking of God, there’s an account we need to pitch.
February 8, 2023
The Straight Pipe Scofflaw Rides Again | Football for a Buck | Clumsy Promo
Hello, situation normies! Before we begin, I want to thank most of you for behaving like solid internet citizens. Twice a week, Situation Normal reaches more than 2,000 people, which is wild, but also terrifying, because the law of large numbers tells us that when a crowd gets big enough, assholes emerge to ruin the fun for everyone. Thankfully, most of you, including my mom, have been cool, or cool enough, which is why I continue to enjoy writing this newsletter. Thank you, situation normies!
OK, on to the fun stuff…
The Straight Pipe Scofflaw Rides Again
Photo by Ronan Furuta on UnsplashAfter thieves stole my catalytic converter for a second time in less than a year, I had a lot of questions. Most of my questions were about law enforcement, automotive design, the limits of our insurance policy, and supply chain management. In other words, most of my questions were boring as fuck.
But upon hearing that it would take eight months to source a new catalytic converter, I also asked some deeper questions about the nature of life, the universe, and everything. In total, I had 42 questions, but I paired the list down to five questions because brevity is the Dover sole of wit.
Why has The Flying Spaghetti Monster forsaken me?
Was the forsaking, in any way, the result of my decision to cut way back on carbs, including pasta, which is the basis of the Pastafarian belief system?
If forced to walk more, might I be able to eat more carbs, thus pleasing The Flying Spaghetti Monster?
How much fusilli does a sinner like me have to eat to get right with Pastafarianism?
What about spaghetti squash? Technically, it’s squash, not spaghetti, but if it’s good enough to trick my tastebuds, might it be good enough to trick The Flying Spaghetti Monster into returning my catalytic converter?
These were theological questions, obviously. But I am not a theologian, so I decided to consult a higher authority.
“Honey, do you feel like getting pasta this weekend?” I asked Christina. “We could go to Maria’s, or Al Italiano, or Il Fornaio, if you’re feeling fancy. I’ve got some questions I need answered, and I don’t think Olive Garden is gonna cut it, even though, you know, they’re family.”
Christina said she was down for pasta, but she had some bad news.
“I’m going to Ventura this weekend, remember? You’re on your own.”
On my own? In Los Angeles? Without a car? What fresh pasta hell was this?
“Check the calendar,” Christina added.
I checked the calendar. Christina had blocked off the weekend to help a friend who is recovering from surgery. That was nice of her. And it was also nice that Christina had followed the scheduling protocols we had developed to survive as a one-car household. What wasn’t so nice was that sinking feeling I got when I realized that I had only myself to blame because I didn’t check the calendar earlier.
“I feel bad that you’re stuck here,” Christina said.
“I’m not stuck. I can walk, or take a Lyft.”
“Yeah, but will you? The only Italian restaurant in walking distance is Oliver Garden, and you hate the Olive Garden, even though they’re family.”
Sometimes Christina knows me better than I know myself. She was right that I wouldn’t walk to Olive Garden, even if they are family, and even if the walk would help me burn off the pasta I planned to consume to get right with The Flying Spaghetti Monster. Christina was also right that I wouldn’t call a Lyft to take me to a better Italian restaurant. After more than two months without my car, I hadn’t taken any Lyft rides, preferring instead to share our only working car, or simply stay home if Christina’s plans conflicted with mine.
“Maybe you should get the straight pipe installed on your car,” Christina said. “I think it’s time to end the one-car household experiment.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t need my car, not really. And that straight pipe is bad for the environment. Plus, it’s illegal.”
All of that was true. I didn’t need my car, I wanted my car; there’s a difference. The straight pipe—a procedure that bypasses a car’s modern emission standards and returns the vehicle to it’s natural smog-belching state—is really bad for the environment. Also, straight pipes are illegal, but increasingly common, thanks to a crime wave of catalytic converter thievery.
“What if there’s an emergency?” Christina asked. “What if something happens to Morty?”
Fuck. My wife was good at this. Really good. I could’ve parried her questions all damn day, but then she brought our dog into this, and I folded like an expensive suit, which it turns out, folds just as easily as a cheap suit.
“I’ll call my mechanic.”
My mechanic said I could bring the car in on Wednesday. But when I tried to start the car on Wednesday morning, I discovered that the battery was dead. That was an entirely predictable outcome for a car that’s been sitting idle for two months collecting bird poop, but it still stung. So I called my mechanic and told him to expect a tow truck. Then I called AAA to tow my car.
The tow truck driver was named Valut. There may have been a language barrier between me and Valut. I told him the battery was dead and that the catalytic converter had been stolen. Then Valut did his thing and got my car up onto his flatbed tow truck.
“Battery dead,” he said. “No catalytic converter.”
Valut relayed this information like he was breaking the bad news to me, but I had already broken the bad news to him.
“I know,” I said. “I told you about the battery and the catalytic converter.”
“No,” Valut said. “I tell you.”
We went around in circles like this until I realized that it didn’t matter. My car was still fucked, and the only way to unfuck it was to send Valut on his way.
“Dasvidaniya,” I told Valut, guessing that he was Russian.
“Adios,” Valut replied.
Later that day, my mechanic called to say that my car was ready. Christina drove me to pick it up, even though I could’ve, and probably should have, walked to the mechanic.
Out of kindness, or perhaps because I’m a repeat customer, my mechanic didn’t charge me for the straight pipe. I thanked my mechanic, then I thanked The Flying Spaghetti Monster for small, low-carb miracles. Then I started my illegal smog-belching Prius, cranked up the radio to full volume, and sang along to the only Judas Priest song I know.
ICYMI - The OG ScofflawBack in July, I wrote about my first time as a straight pipe scofflaw. You can read that story here, but please don’t narc on me, OK?
Football for a BuckIf you loved hookers and cocaine and you could run a 40-yard dash in less than 4.3 seconds, the 1980s were a great time to be alive and playing pro football. That’s one of the things I learned reading Football For A Buck: The Crazy Rise and Crazier Demise of the USFL by Jeff Pearlman. But the upstart pro football league wasn’t all athleticism, sex workers, and Columbian marching powder. In fact, Pearlman’s book is full of learnings. Here are few:
The USFL wasn’t as shitty as people remember. Scores of former USFL players ended up making NFL rosters after the league folded.
USFL players pioneered end zone dances and other gratuitous celebrations that fans love and the NFL frowns upon.
Some USFL players smoked cigarettes on the sidelines and in the huddle. One player, who was known to smoke joints while riding the bench, paid a fan to bring him a hot dog and a beer, which he consumed on live TV.
The USFL pioneered the coach’s challenge and instant replay. Check the tape!
The largest trade in professional sports history took place in 1983, when the entire Chicago Blitz team, including the coaches, were traded for the Arizona Wranglers. Basically, two USFL owners swapped franchises, forcing hundreds of people to move from Chicago to Arizona, or vice versa, and proving that the people who own football teams actually believe that they own their employees.1
USFL game footage lives on, thanks to cost-conscious Hollywood producers and the NFL’s greedy content licensing deals. Chances are, if you see pro football footage in the background of a television show or movie, it’s probably an old USFL game. The footage has been licensed countless times, most notably in the show Friday Night Lights.
Although Burt Reynolds owned a five percent stake in the Tampa Bay Bandits, the team’s name wasn’t a reference to Reynolds’ character from Smokey and the Bandit. Instead, majority owner John F. Bassett named the team after his daughter’s German shepherd.
Donald Trump, who owned the New Jersey Generals, bears most of the blame for the USFL’s collapse. But where Trump’s fellow USFL owners and the American voters exercised poor judgement by letting Trump lead them straight to hell, NFL owners—a notoriously crusty and dim-witted collection of geriatric fuck-heads—proved themselves savvy, and perhaps prescient, by vowing never to let Trump purchase an NFL franchise.
I don’t read many books about sports these days, but I enjoyed Football for a Buck. For one thing, Pearlman answered all the questions I ever could’ve asked about a football league I only vaguely recall watching as a football-obsessed kid in the 1980s. But I also enjoyed Football for a Buck because it’s damn funny. Describing the cast of characters who graced the USFL with their talent (or lack of it), Pearlman wrote, “[the USFL] enlisted your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, your one-armed and chain-smoking and half-blind and clinically insane.”
Situation Normal is free, but some readers, who are probably commies, pay to support my work. If that sounds like you, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription.
Clumsy promoFinishing Football for a Buck a few days for the Super Bowl was a coincidence. But my decision to share the book with you was a very clumsy attempt at promo.
This Sunday, instead of the usual Situation Normal story, I’m teaming up with (Field Research) and (Extra Evil) to collaborate on some satire. The last time I collaborated with Amran and Dennard, we saved American democracy. This time, our goal is to help Vince McMahon, the Memphis Police Department, and the NFL rebrand their shitty images with some unhinged Super Bowl ads.
Stick around and chatYou know the drill. I’ve got questions, you’ve got answers.
Can I count on you to keep my straight pipe scofflaw lifestyle on the down-low? I don’t think I’m cut out for prison.
Have you tried spaghetti squash? Is it a lie, or are pasta-like veggies the truth?
This Super Bowl Sunday, will you be rooting for the Eagles, the Chiefs, the ads, or quality snacks & beverages?
If you owned a pro football team, what would you name it?
Can you recommend a good Italian restaurant that serves tasty pasta with a side of satisfying answers to life’s deeper questions?
See you on Super Bowl Sunday, situation normies!
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February 5, 2023
Mother Trolls Best
Hello, situation normies! Longtime readers know that sometimes I use this space to tell stories about my dad. I call those pieces Larry stories because my dad was named Larry, and also because branding is an important way to set reader expectations. A typical Larry story inspires awe, joy, and sometimes, a really good crying session. But today’s story isn’t a Larry story. Today’s story is a Linda story. Linda is my mom. I love my mom very much, but as you’ll soon see, Linda is extra.
Photo by Meg Jenson on UnsplashIn the summer of 1993, Peter Steiner published a cartoon in The New Yorker that remains the quintessential joke about online anonymity to this day. The cartoon depicts two dogs sitting at a desktop computer. One dog tells the other dog: “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”
Steiner was way ahead of everyone else, especially me. When I wasn’t waiting on a dial-up modem, I spent the summer of 1993 learning to drive. Like most teenagers, my parents were my most influential teachers.
My father picked up where my driver’s education class left off. He taught me valuable lessons like how to merge onto LA’s freeways without pissing my pants, how to roll up to an In ‘N Out drive-thru like a pro, and how to navigate Southern California’s sprawl using a giant book called a Thomas Guide.
Rather than risking a ride with her teenage son behind the wheel, my mother preferred to outsource the job. She chose a local driving school that “guaranteed” its students would pass the DMV test on their first attempt. I learned a lot from that school, but I also learned a lot about what not to do by watching my mom drive.
Known as “Lead Foot Linda,” Mom drove the streets of Los Angeles like a bat out of hell. If you hesitated at a light, she’d lean on the horn. If you cut her off, she’d flip you the bird. At one point, there was a rumor in the Hollywood trades that Universal was thinking about replacing Burt Reynolds with my mom for a Smokey and the Bandit reboot.
By the time my sixteenth birthday rolled around in September, I felt comfortable behind the wheel. I knew what I was supposed to do, thanks to my driver’s education class, the driving school Mom hired, and Dad’s lessons. I also knew what not to do behind the wheel, thanks to Mom.
I passed the DMV test with flying colors! The freedom to come and go as I pleased was thrilling. Even better, the state of California had vested the power in me to choose the radio station. Most days, I chose KROQ and the Los Angeles freeways over the “information superhighway,” where Steiner’s anonymous cartoon dogs were likely learning the basics of internet trolling.
Gayle enters the chatI can’t pinpoint the exact date, but somewhere around 2013 or 2014, I started sharing stories like the one you’re reading now on the internet. I chose Facebook as my distribution platform, even though Facebook is a terrible distribution platform, especially if you’re writing humorous, personal stories that are more likely to spark joy than outrage.
Everyone said they loved my Facebook stories, but I didn’t really believe them because that’s just the sort of thing your friends and family are supposed to say to encourage you. But I kept putting those stories on Facebook because doing so seemed like a good way to remind people, especially myself, that I was a writer who wrote things, even though most of the things I wrote in those days—novels and screenplays—wouldn’t see the light of day.
Eventually, I quit Facebook, mostly for mental health reasons. I put my funny, personal stories on a platform called TinyLetter, which is owned by an outfit called MailChimp, which you might remember from such true crime podcasts as Serial. But the chimps who control the mail stopped supporting TinyLetter, so I moved to Substack.
My goals on Substack were modest at first. “I just want a place to tell my stories,” I told Christina. But over the next two years, Situation Normal grew, and my ambitions for this project grew as well. First, I began selling my books to Situation Normal readers who were kind enough to buy them! Then, in the waning days of 2022, I switched on paid subscriptions. To my surprise (and delight), people began paying for Situation Normal, even though every single story was available to them free of charge!
“It’s not quite a business yet,” I told a friend recently, “but it’s not not-a-business.”
To encourage readers to commit to a paid subscription, Substack advises writers to offer subscriber benefits. I thought about giving away tote bags, or Situation Normal t-shirts, or signed copies of my tax returns. But since I’m new to the intersection of creativity and commerce, I decided to keep it simple. I currently offer intangible benefits because delivering those benefits doesn’t add much administrative work to Situation Normal. Like I said, it’s not quite a business, but it’s not not-a-business either.
A screenshot of Situation Normal subscriber benefits. Most of you chose the free option, which promises “laughter, joy, and the occasional insight.”For the past month, I’ve made it a practice to shout out new paid subscribers in my Wednesday posts. On the surface, a shout out is easy. But the way I manage the process leaves a lot to be desired. Basically, Substack sends me an email every time someone buys a paid subscription. I save those emails. When I sit down to write the Wednesday edition of Situation Normal, I comb through a jam-packed inbox filled with work stuff, hyperbolic political emails, and spam to find those important email notifications so that I can fulfill my promise to publicly recognize the generous people who support my work.
Obviously, managing my inbox isn’t my strong suit. Maybe that’s why I haven’t found a process that helps me safeguard against my biggest fear: forgetting to make good on my promise to publicly recognize the generous people who support my work.
This past Wednesday, my biggest fear came true. In the comments to the Wednesday edition of Situation Normal, a reader named Gayle called me out for failing to recognize her monetary contribution. Here’s part of what Gayle wrote in her comment:
I love your writing. I love all your stories. But when you listed the people that have paid for Situation Normal, you left my name out.. Not a good thing to do to paying people.
My heart skipped a beat when I read Gayle’s comment. I had fucked over a fan, which is objectively terrible, and also a really bad idea for an enterprise that’s not not-a-business, but working hard to become a business-business. When my heart resumed beating, it did so with the extra oomph that only anxiety can bring.
Consternation & RevelationUnfortunately, I saw Gayle’s comment right as I was about to meet a friend for lunch. Technically, I could’ve used my phone to investigate Gayle’s accusation, but I didn’t want to be rude to my friend. Also, small screens, fat fingers, and the inadequacies of the mobile web experience make it difficult navigate the business end of my Substack.
So, I sat with my anxiety for a few hours. Talking to my friend about writing stuff and life stuff didn’t help my anxiety, but the conversation was a pleasant distraction. Then lunch ended, and my worst fears raced through my mind.
Had Gayle canceled her subscription?
Had she inspired others to cancel their subscriptions?
Was Gayle in the process of hiring a lawyer to sue my ass for shout out malpractice?
Those were the questions that raced through my mind as I sat in traffic on my way home. But those fear-based questions were punctuated by fact-based questions.
Could I contact Gayle and patch things up?
Aside from shouting out Gayle in the next Wednesday edition of Situation Normal, what else could I do to make it up to her?
Was Gayle actually a paid subscriber? I didn’t remember seeing an email from Substack about anyone named Gayle. I have a pretty good memory, and it’s not like I have that many paid subscribers at this point.
When I finally returned home, I raced past Christina and Mortimer, ran into my office, and fired up my computer. I was determined to get answers to the Gayle situation.
Once I logged into my Substack account, I typed the name “Gayle” into the subscriber search box. There was one result. Gayle was indeed a paid subscriber. I felt my heart sink because I knew I hadn’t shouted out anyone named Gayle.
Then I noticed something funny about Gayle’s account. Her email address looked familiar. Very familiar. Gayle’s email address was my mom’s email address! But for some reason my mom, whose name is Linda, had subscribed to my Substack using her middle name as an alias.
Confess, Gayle!I called my mom in Las Vegas to get some answers. I asked her if she had left a comment on Situation Normal. She said that she had left a comment.
“But your handle is… Gayle?”
“It’s my middle name, Michael. You know that.”
“Yeah, mom, I know you’re middle name. What I don’t understand is why you’re using an alias for Situation Normal?”
At first, Mom tried to blame the Substack sign up process.
“You know how lousy I am with computers, Michael.”
That was true. Mom is lousy with computers, and really, all technology. But I know the Substack sign up process like the back of my hand. I had to call bullshit on Mom’s claim that this platform had somehow done her dirty.
“Substack didn’t pick your handle, Mom. You made a choice, and you typed in your middle name. Why?”
“Oh! That’s because I didn’t want people to know that it was your mom leaving comments.”
I pressed Linda, aka Gayle, aka Mom, to explain the rationale behind her ruse. Basically, she argued, if people see your mom leaving comments on your stories, they’ll assume that your work is the kind of material that only a mother could love. But if they see someone leaving comments who doesn’t appear to be related to the writer, they’ll assume that the material is good because strangers on the internet seem to like it.
On the one hand, Mom’s strategy seemed like something out of the dark art of public relations, where perception is reality, and faking it until you make it is the order of the day. But on the other hand, Mom, aka Linda, aka Gayle appeared to be trolling me, and I didn’t see how back-handed trolling compliments helped my cause.
“Mom, I don’t understand. I gave you a shout out a few weeks ago when you bought an annual subscription.”
“I know you did, but you didn’t include me on the list of subscribers this week.”
That list included 16 new paid subscribers—the biggest gain in Situation Normal’s brief commercial history. As it happened, two of those paid subscribers were my sister, Allison, and her partner, Craig. Maybe, I thought, Mom felt excluded because the most recent list included two members of the family. But when I raised the possibility that there was some jealousy at work here, Mom doubled-down on her demand.
“I just wanted another shout out.”
“But, Mom, shout outs are only for new paid subscribers. It’s a one shout out per customer kind of deal.”
Mom said she understood the Situation Normal shout out policy, but then she reiterated that she should’ve been included in the most recent list—for some reason. So maybe she didn’t actually understand the Situation Normal shout out policy, or maybe she just didn’t care, or maybe my mom thinks the rules just don’t apply to her??
I’m not sure what the answer is, to be honest. But the rest of our conversation was amicable, even if it left me bewildered. As I hung up the phone, I thought, Peter Steiner was right: on the internet nobody knows you’re a dog. But, I realized, there’s an important corollary to Steiner’s famous cartoon: none of the dogs on the internet know their moms are trolls.
A few words about Linda “Gayle” EstrinI’ve never really thought about my mom as an internet troll, but that’s only because she sucks at the internet. Not that I’m not throwing shade at my mom when I say that. Mom regularly tells everyone she knows that she doesn’t understand the internet. Internet ignorance was actually her first defense when I called her out for leaving the comment that set this whole story in motion. But beyond that specific incident, Mom’s observable behaviors in the digital world back up her self-described Luddite status. Some examples:
Mom signs her text messages and Facebook posts. Even though we’ve explained countless times that she doesn’t need to sign texts and Facebook posts, she continues the practice because “what do I know about any of this internet shit.”
Despite repeated warnings about malware and spyware, Mom will download anything that even remotely looks like a Mahjong game because “what do I know about this internet shit.”
Mom sometimes wishes people happy birthday on Facebook by adding poop emojis—💩💩💩—to her posts because “what do I know about this internet shit.”
I could go on and on, but you get the idea. If left to her own devices, Mom wouldn’t be able to connect any of her devices to the internet.
But it takes more than being tech savvy to troll people online. You also have to have the spirit of the troll—a reckless devil may care attitude that inspires you to do it for the lolz. On that front, I had to admit that Mom had always shown signs of trolling. Some examples:
There’s the aforementioned reckless driving, including a notorious incident when Mom told a Missouri state trooper that she was speeding through the Show-Me state because “Missouri is fucking boring.” Mom, who clearly had zero fucks to give, was going more than 100 miles per hour on the highway that day, but thankfully Dad talked the trooper into writing a ticket instead of arresting Mom for reckless driving.
There’s the time Mom found out that Christina makes more money than me and responded by telling my wife that she “married beneath her.”
There’s the time Mom called me to recommend a novel because “reading it will help you write a better novel.”
“Gayle’s” passive-aggressive Situation Normal comment, including that last sentence in praise of a lady who thinks I’m evil.
Kangaroo group chat court“Am I nuts, or is my mom trolling me?” I asked Christina.
“Technically, both can be true,” Christina said. “But I think your mom is trolling you.”
Christina didn’t say another word about my sanity, and I didn’t ask. Still, we were both puzzled by the disconnect between Mom’s inclination to troll on the one hand, and her lack of tech savviness on the other hand.
I decided to text Allison and Craig to see what they made of the situation. But in the interest of fairness to Mom, aka Linda, aka Gayle, I didn’t use the word “troll.” I wanted Craig and Allison to reach their own conclusions about Mom’s trolling.
Craig was the first one to respond to my text, but he didn’t call my mom a troll. To be fair to Craig, he’s a lovely person who is new to our family. As such, Craig can always be counted on to go with the kindest possible interpretation of weird family dynamics. Here’s what Craig wrote:
I love that she used a fake name. That’s amazing. Just take in how awesome it is that your mom subscribed to your newsletter with a fake name. It’s like out of sight!
Craig had a good point. When another writer’s mom uses a fake name to sign up for their newsletter, it’s hilarious, but when my mom does the same thing, it raises all sorts of uncomfortable questions. If I could somehow step back and see this situation objectively, I could find the humor in this episode. While I was trying to do just that, Allison replied to my text. Here’s what my sister wrote:
[She signed up under a fake name] so she could make shitty comments! It’s brilliant. Also, she is not allowed to say she doesn’t understand the internet ever again if she is able to troll someone!
There it was, the T-word. The verdict was in. My mom is an internet troll, and I am her target, I guess.
Situation Normal readers beware!Initially, I had reservations about writing this story. For one thing, it doesn’t paint me in a flattering light. After all, writing a story about how your mom played the long game to troll you in the comments section of your own newsletter isn’t exactly a flex. Even worse, I’m calling my mom a troll. And yeah, OK, she is a troll, but it’s one thing to share that with your wife, your sister, and your sister’s partner, and it’s something else entirely to share that information with thousands of strangers on the internet.
But Christina and Craig both argued in favor of sharing this story. Basically, Christina and Craig thought it would make a lot of people laugh because moms who are extra, especially when it comes to their relationships with their kids, are a nearly universal theme. Also, Christina and Craig argued, writing this story would give Mom, aka, Linda, aka Gayle the attention she was craving.
That last argument didn’t sit well with me. I’m far from the internet’s greatest troll hunter—obviously!—but I do know this: you’re not supposed to feed the trolls. If I wrote this story, wouldn’t I be feeding a troll?
Then there was the larger Situation Normal community to consider. Everyday, this newsletter grows, and everyday I marvel at the fact that with the exception of my mom, I haven’t attracted any trolls. I’d like to keep the good vibes going for as a long as possible, but now that I know there’s a troll working the Situation Normal comments section, aren’t I obligated to say something?
I decided that the answers to both those questions was yes. I am feeding a troll, and I am obligated to warn this community about the shit that’s going down in the comments section. So, in the interest of relatable humor and community safety, I decided to write this story.
Consider this your warning, situation normies. Gayle, aka Linda, aka Michael’s mom, has entered the chat. She came here to troll and get some shout outs, and she’s all out of shout outs.
Situation Normal isn’t a business, but it’s not not-a-business. To support my work & receive ONE shout out, become a paid subscriber👇
Thanks for reading! No questions this week, but the comments are open. Just remember to play nice, especially you, Mom!
And if you enjoyed this story, please do me a huge favor and share it! Forward the email to a few friends, post it on social media, or press the button and see what happens👇
Mother Troll's Best
Hello, situation normies! Longtime readers know that sometimes I use this space to tell stories about my dad. I call those pieces Larry stories because my dad was named Larry, and also because branding is an important way to set reader expectations. A typical Larry story inspires awe, joy, and sometimes, a really good crying session. But today’s story isn’t a Larry story. Today’s story is a Linda story. Linda is my mom. I love my mom very much, but as you’ll soon see, Linda is extra.
Photo by Meg Jenson on UnsplashIn the summer of 1993, Peter Steiner published a cartoon in The New Yorker that remains the quintessential joke about online anonymity to this day. The cartoon depicts two dogs sitting at a desktop computer. One dog tells the other dog: “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”
Steiner was way ahead of everyone else, especially me. When I wasn’t waiting on a dial-up modem, I spent the summer of 1993 learning to drive. Like most teenagers, my parents were my most influential teachers.
My father picked up where my driver’s education class left off. He taught me valuable lessons like how to merge onto LA’s freeways without pissing my pants, how to roll up to an In ‘N Out drive-thru like a pro, and how to navigate Southern California’s sprawl using a giant book called a Thomas Guide.
Rather than risking a ride with her teenage son behind the wheel, my mother preferred to outsource the job. She chose a local driving school that “guaranteed” its students would pass the DMV test on their first attempt. I learned a lot from that school, but I also learned a lot about what not to do by watching my mom drive.
Known as “Lead Foot Linda,” Mom drove the streets of Los Angeles like a bat out of hell. If you hesitated at a light, she’d lean on the horn. If you cut her off, she’d flip you the bird. At one point, there was a rumor in the Hollywood trades that Universal was thinking about replacing Burt Reynolds with my mom for a Smokey and the Bandit reboot.
By the time my sixteenth birthday rolled around in September, I felt comfortable behind the wheel. I knew what I was supposed to do, thanks to my driver’s education class, the driving school Mom hired, and Dad’s lessons. I also knew what not to do behind the wheel, thanks to Mom.
I passed the DMV test with flying colors! The freedom to come and go as I pleased was thrilling. Even better, the state of California had vested the power in me to choose the radio station. Most days, I chose KROQ and the Los Angeles freeways over the “information superhighway,” where Steiner’s anonymous cartoon dogs were likely learning the basics of internet trolling.
Gayle enters the chatI can’t pinpoint the exact date, but somewhere around 2013 or 2014, I started sharing stories like the one you’re reading now on the internet. I chose Facebook as my distribution platform, even though Facebook is a terrible distribution platform, especially if you’re writing humorous, personal stories that are more likely to spark joy than outrage.
Everyone said they loved my Facebook stories, but I didn’t really believe them because that’s just the sort of thing your friends and family are supposed to say to encourage you. But I kept putting those stories on Facebook because doing so seemed like a good way to remind people, especially myself, that I was a writer who wrote things, even though most of the things I wrote in those days—novels and screenplays—wouldn’t see the light of day.
Eventually, I quit Facebook, mostly for mental health reasons. I put my funny, personal stories on a platform called TinyLetter, which is owned by an outfit called MailChimp, which you might remember from such true crime podcasts as Serial. But the chimps who control the mail stopped supporting TinyLetter, so I moved to Substack.
My goals on Substack were modest at first. “I just want a place to tell my stories,” I told Christina. But over the next two years, Situation Normal grew, and my ambitions for this project grew as well. First, I began selling my books to Situation Normal readers who were kind enough to buy them! Then, in the waning days of 2022, I switched on paid subscriptions. To my surprise (and delight), people began paying for Situation Normal, even though every single story was available to them free of charge!
“It’s not quite a business yet,” I told a friend recently, “but it’s not not-a-business.”
To encourage readers to commit to a paid subscription, Substack advises writers to offer subscriber benefits. I thought about giving away tote bags, or Situation Normal t-shirts, or signed copies of my tax returns. But since I’m new to the intersection of creativity and commerce, I decided to keep it simple. I currently offer intangible benefits because delivering those benefits doesn’t add much administrative work to Situation Normal. Like I said, it’s not quite a business, but it’s not not-a-business either.
A screenshot of Situation Normal subscriber benefits. Most of you chose the free option, which promises “laughter, joy, and the occasional insight.”For the past month, I’ve made it a practice to shout out new paid subscribers in my Wednesday posts. On the surface, a shout out is easy. But the way I manage the process leaves a lot to be desired. Basically, Substack sends me an email every time someone buys a paid subscription. I save those emails. When I sit down to write the Wednesday edition of Situation Normal, I comb through a jam-packed inbox filled with work stuff, hyperbolic political emails, and spam to find those important email notifications so that I can fulfill my promise to publicly recognize the generous people who support my work.
Obviously, managing my inbox isn’t my strong suit. Maybe that’s why I haven’t found a process that helps me safeguard against my biggest fear: forgetting to make good on my promise to publicly recognize the generous people who support my work.
This past Wednesday, my biggest fear came true. In the comments to the Wednesday edition of Situation Normal, a reader named Gayle called me out for failing to recognize her monetary contribution. Here’s part of what Gayle wrote in her comment:
I love your writing. I love all your stories. But when you listed the people that have paid for Situation Normal, you left my name out.. Not a good thing to do to paying people.
My heart skipped a beat when I read Gayle’s comment. I had fucked over a fan, which is objectively terrible, and also a really bad idea for an enterprise that’s not not-a-business, but working hard to become a business-business. When my heart resumed beating, it did so with the extra oomph that only anxiety can bring.
Consternation & RevelationUnfortunately, I saw Gayle’s comment right as I was about to meet a friend for lunch. Technically, I could’ve used my phone to investigate Gayle’s accusation, but I didn’t want to be rude to my friend. Also, small screens, fat fingers, and the inadequacies of the mobile web experience make it difficult navigate the business end of my Substack.
So, I sat with my anxiety for a few hours. Talking to my friend about writing stuff and life stuff didn’t help my anxiety, but the conversation was a pleasant distraction. Then lunch ended, and my worst fears raced through my mind.
Had Gayle canceled her subscription?
Had she inspired others to cancel their subscriptions?
Was Gayle in the process of hiring a lawyer to sue my ass for shout out malpractice?
Those were the questions that raced through my mind as I sat in traffic on my way home. But those fear-based questions were punctuated by fact-based questions.
Could I contact Gayle and patch things up?
Aside from shouting out Gayle in the next Wednesday edition of Situation Normal, what else could I do to make it up to her?
Was Gayle actually a paid subscriber? I didn’t remember seeing an email from Substack about anyone named Gayle. I have a pretty good memory, and it’s not like I have that many paid subscribers at this point.
When I finally returned home, I raced past Christina and Mortimer, ran into my office, and fired up my computer. I was determined to get answers to the Gayle situation.
Once I logged into my Substack account, I typed the name “Gayle” into the subscriber search box. There was one result. Gayle was indeed a paid subscriber. I felt my heart sink because I knew I hadn’t shouted out anyone named Gayle.
Then I noticed something funny about Gayle’s account. Her email address looked familiar. Very familiar. Gayle’s email address was my mom’s email address! But for some reason my mom, whose name is Linda, had subscribed to my Substack using her middle name as an alias.
Confess, Gayle!I called my mom in Las Vegas to get some answers. I asked her if she had left a comment on Situation Normal. She said that she had left a comment.
“But your handle is… Gayle?”
“It’s my middle name, Michael. You know that.”
“Yeah, mom, I know you’re middle name. What I don’t understand is why you’re using an alias for Situation Normal?”
At first, Mom tried to blame the Substack sign up process.
“You know how lousy I am with computers, Michael.”
That was true. Mom is lousy with computers, and really, all technology. But I know the Substack sign up process like the back of my hand. I had to call bullshit on Mom’s claim that this platform had somehow done her dirty.
“Substack didn’t pick your handle, Mom. You made a choice, and you typed in your middle name. Why?”
“Oh! That’s because I didn’t want people to know that it was your mom leaving comments.”
I pressed Linda, aka Gayle, aka Mom, to explain the rationale behind her ruse. Basically, she argued, if people see your mom leaving comments on your stories, they’ll assume that your work is the kind of material that only a mother could love. But if they see someone leaving comments who doesn’t appear to be related to the writer, they’ll assume that the material is good because strangers on the internet seem to like it.
On the one hand, Mom’s strategy seemed like something out of the dark art of public relations, where perception is reality, and faking it until you make it is the order of the day. But on the other hand, Mom, aka Linda, aka Gayle appeared to be trolling me, and I didn’t see how back-handed trolling compliments helped my cause.
“Mom, I don’t understand. I gave you a shout out a few weeks ago when you bought an annual subscription.”
“I know you did, but you didn’t include me on the list of subscribers this week.”
That list included 16 new paid subscribers—the biggest gain in Situation Normal’s brief commercial history. As it happened, two of those paid subscribers were my sister, Allison, and her partner, Craig. Maybe, I thought, Mom felt excluded because the most recent list included two members of the family. But when I raised the possibility that there was some jealousy at work here, Mom doubled-down on her demand.
“I just wanted another shout out.”
“But, Mom, shout outs are only for new paid subscribers. It’s a one shout out per customer kind of deal.”
Mom said she understood the Situation Normal shout out policy, but then she reiterated that she should’ve been included in the most recent list—for some reason. So maybe she didn’t actually understand the Situation Normal shout out policy, or maybe she just didn’t care, or maybe my mom thinks the rules just don’t apply to her??
I’m not sure what the answer is, to be honest. But the rest of our conversation was amicable, even if it left me bewildered. As I hung up the phone, I thought, Peter Steiner was right: on the internet nobody knows you’re a dog. But, I realized, there’s an important corollary to Steiner’s famous cartoon: none of the dogs on the internet know their moms are trolls.
A few words about Linda “Gayle” EstrinI’ve never really thought about my mom as an internet troll, but that’s only because she sucks at the internet. Not that I’m not throwing shade at my mom when I say that. Mom regularly tells everyone she knows that she doesn’t understand the internet. Internet ignorance was actually her first defense when I called her out for leaving the comment that set this whole story in motion. But beyond that specific incident, Mom’s observable behaviors in the digital world back up her self-described Luddite status. Some examples:
Mom signs her text messages and Facebook posts. Even though we’ve explained countless times that she doesn’t need to sign texts and Facebook posts, she continues the practice because “what do I know about any of this internet shit.”
Despite repeated warnings about malware and spyware, Mom will download anything that even remotely looks like a Mahjong game because “what do I know about this internet shit.”
Mom sometimes wishes people happy birthday on Facebook by adding poop emojis—💩💩💩—to her posts because “what do I know about this internet shit.”
I could go on and on, but you get the idea. If left to her own devices, Mom wouldn’t be able to connect any of her devices to the internet.
But it takes more than being tech savvy to troll people online. You also have to have the spirit of the troll—a reckless devil may care attitude that inspires you to do it for the lolz. On that front, I had to admit that Mom had always shown signs of trolling. Some examples:
There’s the aforementioned reckless driving, including a notorious incident when Mom told a Missouri state trooper that she was speeding through the Show-Me state because “Missouri is fucking boring.” Mom, who clearly had zero fucks to give, was going more than 100 miles per hour on the highway that day, but thankfully Dad talked the trooper into writing a ticket instead of arresting Mom for reckless driving.
There’s the time Mom found out that Christina makes more money than me and responded by telling my wife that she “married beneath her.”
There’s the time Mom called me to recommend a novel because “reading it will help you write a better novel.”
“Gayle’s” passive-aggressive Situation Normal comment, including that last sentence in praise of a lady who thinks I’m evil.
Kangaroo group chat court“Am I nuts, or is my mom trolling me?” I asked Christina.
“Technically, both can be true,” Christina said. “But I think your mom is trolling you.”
Christina didn’t say another word about my sanity, and I didn’t ask. Still, we were both puzzled by the disconnect between Mom’s inclination to troll on the one hand, and her lack of tech savviness on the other hand.
I decided to text Allison and Craig to see what they made of the situation. But in the interest of fairness to Mom, aka Linda, aka Gayle, I didn’t use the word “troll.” I wanted Craig and Allison to reach their own conclusions about Mom’s trolling.
Craig was the first one to respond to my text, but he didn’t call my mom a troll. To be fair to Craig, he’s a lovely person who is new to our family. As such, Craig can always be counted on to go with the kindest possible interpretation of weird family dynamics. Here’s what Craig wrote:
I love that she used a fake name. That’s amazing. Just take in how awesome it is that your mom subscribed to your newsletter with a fake name. It’s like out of sight!
Craig had a good point. When another writer’s mom uses a fake name to sign up for their newsletter, it’s hilarious, but when my mom does the same thing, it raises all sorts of uncomfortable questions. If I could somehow step back and see this situation objectively, I could find the humor in this episode. While I was trying to do just that, Allison replied to my text. Here’s what my sister wrote:
[She signed up under a fake name] so she could make shitty comments! It’s brilliant. Also, she is not allowed to say she doesn’t understand the internet ever again if she is able to troll someone!
There it was, the T-word. The verdict was in. My mom is an internet troll, and I am her target, I guess.
Situation Normal readers beware!Initially, I had reservations about writing this story. For one thing, it doesn’t paint me in a flattering light. After all, writing a story about how your mom played the long game to troll you in the comments section of your own newsletter isn’t exactly a flex. Even worse, I’m calling my mom a troll. And yeah, OK, she is a troll, but it’s one thing to share that with your wife, your sister, and your sister’s partner, and it’s something else entirely to share that information with thousands of strangers on the internet.
But Christina and Craig both argued in favor of sharing this story. Basically, Christina and Craig thought it would make a lot of people laugh because moms who are extra, especially when it comes to their relationships with their kids, are a nearly universal theme. Also, Christina and Craig argued, writing this story would give Mom, aka, Linda, aka Gayle the attention she was craving.
That last argument didn’t sit well with me. I’m far from the internet’s greatest troll hunter—obviously!—but I do know this: you’re not supposed to feed the trolls. If I wrote this story, wouldn’t I be feeding a troll?
Then there was the larger Situation Normal community to consider. Everyday, this newsletter grows, and everyday I marvel at the fact that with the exception of my mom, I haven’t attracted any trolls. I’d like to keep the good vibes going for as a long as possible, but now that I know there’s a troll working the Situation Normal comments section, aren’t I obligated to say something?
I decided that the answers to both those questions was yes. I am feeding a troll, and I am obligated to warn this community about the shit that’s going down in the comments section. So, in the interest of relatable humor and community safety, I decided to write this story.
Consider this your warning, situation normies. Gayle, aka Linda, aka Michael’s mom, has entered the chat. She came here to troll and get some shout outs, and she’s all out of shout outs.
Situation Normal isn’t a business, but it’s not not-a-business. To support my work & receive ONE shout out, become a paid subscriber👇
Thanks for reading! No questions this week, but the comments are open. Just remember to play nice, especially you, Mom!
And if you enjoyed this story, please do me a huge favor and share it! Forward the email to a few friends, post it on social media, or press the button and see what happens👇
February 1, 2023
Accolades & Blowback | Sunday Shit Show | Fortify Your Ride
Hello, situation normies! There are WAY more of you here than there were this time last week, so I’d like to extend a warm welcome to the newest situation normies. I’m sure you’re all magnificent human beings, and I want to assure you that subscribing to Situation Normal will solve all of your problems, or maybe some of your problems, or maybe just bring a smile to your face while you struggle with / ignore your problems. Point is, you’re here for Situation Normal, and Situation Normal is here for you!
Accolades & BlowbackThis past Saturday was a big day for me. My plan was to wake up early, take our dog, Mortimer, for a long walk, then go see Infinity Pool with Christina and our friend, Norm, and after that, discuss the movie over Chinese dumplings. All of this happened, but something unexpected and wonderful happened too: shared one of my stories! They even gave me a badge, so now Situation Normal is totally legit, right?
Visual proof that Situation Normal is totally legit!The story Substack Reads shared is called Porn conventions are decadent and depraved (and also very mainstream). In one sense, the subject matter is a departure from what you typically read in Situation Normal, which is why I house the Porn Valley stories in a section of this newsletter I call Smutty. But in another sense, the piece is a continuation of what Situation Normal has always been about: writing from my personal experience with as much humor and humanity as I can muster.
I’m proud of Porn conventions are decadent and depraved (and also very mainstream), but some people were really mad that Substack Reads would include a piece about a porn convention in the weekly roundup of noteworthy writing. You can’t please everyone, and honestly it’s best not to try, unless you want to to be boring. Still, some of those nasty comments stung!
One guy asked how many subscribers my soul was worth! The answer, as of this writing, is approximately 600. But unlike Faust, I like to renegotiate as a go.
Multiple readers accused me of producing and distributing pornography. But they literally missed the point. I actually wrote about people who produce and distribute pornography—a distinction that allows me to keep my clothes on, while staying on the right side of Substack’s terms of service.
A few readers threatened to leave Substack because of me. That seemed kind of dramatic, or maybe melodramatic. Honestly, I think they were bluffing.
Finally, one person was so upset that they made a hilarious typo👇
I don’t know about you, but I’d love to see more immortality in this world, if only because it would be nice to skip paying my life insurance premiums. But we’re getting off topic.
The topic is: Situation Normal is now a featured publication on Substack!
I’ve been told to await a treasure chest full of gold doubloons and precious jewels, as well as the ceremonial keys to a mid-sized North American city. I also shared my number with the White House switchboard, just in case Joe Biden wants to call to congratulate me, or lodge a formal complaint about the Situation Normal Presidential mustache competition.
I’m kidding, of course. But if you’ll allow me a serious moment, I want to thank each and every one of you for helping to make Situation Normal what it is today. I wouldn’t be writing this newsletter, if you weren’t reading it. So, whether you’ve been here for years, or you’re brand spanking new, this recognition is as much yours as it is mine.
Sunday Shit ShowUsually, I wake up early on Sunday, take Mortimer for a walk, then go to the market, then return home to meal prep for the week while I listen to an audiobook.
This Sunday, I planned to roast some squash and broccoli, grill some chicken breasts, and make a few batches of overnight oats. While I cooked, I planned to listen to Football For A Buck: The Crazy Rise and Crazier Demise of the USFL by Jeff Pearlman. But that plan went to shit before I could pre-heat the oven.
While washing a large mixing bowl in the sink, my muscle memory reminded me that I am a klutz. I dropped the bowl, and it shattered into a dozen pieces. My thoughts were as follows:
Fuck!
Shit!
Dang it, I hope that noise didn’t wake up Christina.
It’s a miracle I didn’t cut myself on the broken pieces of the bowl.
I’ve got to get Mortimer out of the kitchen so he doesn’t cut his paws on any of those broken bowl pieces.
Why is there so much blood on the floor?
Holy shit!
That’s my blood.
I’m bleeding.
The blood is coming from… everywhere.
I used a kitchen towel to stop the bleeding. Christina woke up and ran into the kitchen. She was foggy because she’s not a morning person, but to her credit, Christina wasted no time. She whisked Mortimer away to safety, then helped me clean and dress the wounds on my hands and wrists. Then we cleaned up the kitchen. Actually, Christina cleaned up the mess. I stood there feeling sorry for myself.
“Maybe you hold off on meal prep for now, honey.”
I looked at my hands. I wasn’t cut too deep, but three of my cuts were real motherfuckers because they were on my finger tips. My left index and middle fingers, along with my right pinky were out of commission.
I decided to skip meal prep.
Later, our friend Anna came over. Christina and Anna have been running a Colin Farrell film festival in our living room these past few weeks. So far, they’ve seen In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths. To round out Farrell’s work with writer-director Martin McDonagh, they decided to watchThe Banshees of Inisherin.
Anna thought is was a beautiful film about an under-appreciated topic: male friendships. Christina wanted more action. I skipped the film because finger wounds feature prominently in The Banshees of Inisherin, and that just hit a little too close to home after the morning’s meal prep fiasco.
As evening approached, I realized that my original dinner plan wasn’t going to fly because I was counting on using the chicken and some of the veggies I was supposed to prep in the morning.
“We’ll go out,” Christina said. “Thai or Mediterranean?”
The three of us took a vote because it’s important to exercise those democracy muscle whenever you get the chance these days. Despite some populist rhetoric from a gyro who claimed that he, alone, could satisfy our hunger, Thai food won in a landslide.
Dinner was great because our local Thai place knows their shit. But while we were out, Mortimer snuck into our bedroom, even though he knows he’s not allowed in the back of the house when we’re away.
It was dark in our bedroom. And Mortimer, who is getting old, doesn’t have the eyesight or the fortitude he once had. Somewhere in the darkness, our four-legged family member panicked. Instead of jumping off our bed and running to the living room to pee on his pad, Mortimer peed on the bed.
Mortimer chillin’ like a villain on the same bed he would later soil.When we came home, we discovered that Mortimer’s pee had gone through the comforter, through the sheets, and into the mattress. We treated the soiled sheets and comforter, then loaded the washing machine.
“How do we get pee out of a mattress?” Christina asked.
We’d never faced that question before. We were stumped. But then I remembered that the Ye Olde Google Machine always has answers.
With my bandaged fingers, it took a little hunting and pecking on the keyboard to find the answer, but the Google people connected us to the Casper Mattress people, and even though we didn’t buy our mattress from Casper, the company’s content marketing saved the day. Actually, chemistry in the form of water, vinegar, soap, and little baking soda saved the day, but it was the Casper Mattress content marketing team that put that solution in our hands. Unfortunately, treating your mattress with Casper’s homemade chemical pee-remover takes eight to ten hours.
“I think we need to setup the bed in the office,” Christina said.
So we set up the bed in the office. Then I took the sheets out of the washing machine, put them in the dryer, and loaded the comforter into the washing machine.
I was exhausted. All I really wanted to do was go to bed and forget about Shit Show Sunday. But the laundry was in progress, and I really wanted overnight oats on Monday, and there are only two non-negotiable parts to overnight oats: the oats and the fact that they must be soaked for about as long as it takes Casper’s homemade chemical pee-remover to remove pee from your mattress.
So I returned to the kitchen that had done me wrong. I meal prepped late into the night, taking time out to manage the laundry. And the whole time, I listened to a story about a half-baked pro football league, a young running back named Herschel Walker, and a bullying team owner named Donald Trump, whose ill-advised decision to sue the NFL hastened the demise of The United States Football League.
Fortify Your RideAs many of you know, I’ve had a hell of a time securing the catalytic convertor on my Prius. This past summer, thieves stole my catalytic convertor. It took months to get a replacement, and when I finally did get a new catalytic convertor, the thieves came back and stole the replacement!
It’s frustrating and absurd, and if I’m not mistaken, it was the repeated theft of his catalytic convertor that inspired Albert Camus to write The Myth of Sisyphus. Camus earned a lot praise for his essay about the search for meaning in the face of life’s absurdities, but The Myth of Sisyphus didn’t solve his car troubles. In fact, Camus continued to bum rides off philosophy majors for the rest of his life. Legend has it he was even late to his own funeral because his Uber driver had a case existential dread that later turned out to be ennui.
Thankfully, I’m a Lyft man. Also, Christina has been gracious enough to share her car with me, so I’m doing better than Camus, at least in terms of navigating the absurdities of transportation.
Meanwhile, my mechanic assures me that the supply chain is just as messed up as it ever was. Supposedly, I’ll get a new catalytic convertor in May or June, but I’m not holding my breath because I can’t survive that long without oxygen.
I’ll get a new catalytic convertor at some point. And when I do get my new catalytic convertor, I have a good idea on how to protect it from thieves, thanks to a reader named Penni, who sent me some Instagram screenshots of a catalytic convertor wrapped in barbed wire.
I don’t know if barbed wire will keep the thieves away, but at least it’s something. Also, riding around in a Prius with a barded wire undercarriage is as close as I’ll probably ever come to living that Mad Max life.
You can read all about my catalytic converter woes here, here, and here.
Contribute a thing to Situation Normal!The Wednesday edition doesn’t write itself. I need your help! Do you have a question about something I’ve written? Got a weird overheard you want to share? See a product or sign that made you LOL, or WTF? Need life advice? Reply to this email, or send your submissions to me at 👇
michael.j.estrin@gmail.com
When submitting, please say if you’d like an alias. Otherwise, I’ll use your first name. If you write a newsletter, I’m happy to link to it, so let me know!
ICYMII conquered my fear of asking for money by outsourcing Situation Normal’s fundraising efforts to an artificial intelligence writer called ChatGTP. So far, so good! But as one astute reader pointed out, I’ve made ChatGTP smarter, which means the machines will replace us sooner, rather than later. Oops.
Situation NormalWhy should you pay for Situation Normal?Hello, situation normies! Late last year, I began accepting paid subscriptions to Situation Normal. I meant to explain more about my decision, but I hate making sales pitches, which is why this post sat in my drafts folder for MORE THAN A MONTH! I was stuck. Really stuck. But then I got smart. I outsourced the job to…Read more4 days ago · 21 likes · 14 comments · Michael EstrinA list of awesome peopleSituation Normal is free, but I keep this enterprise going with the help of awesome situation normies who pay what they can to support my work. This past week, 16 of situation normies put their names on the awesome people list. A big thank you goes out to:
My sister, Allison, who became a founding member, even though she’s always been a founding member.
Allison’s partner, Craig, who saw Allison’s pledge and said, “two can play at that game, dear.”
My friend Becky, who said the annual subscription was “well worth the moola.”
Maddmac, who went big with an annual subscription to Situation Normal!
Dan, who is doing the monthly thing!
Kathy, who is also doing the monthly thing!
Steve, who dropped $50 for the entire year!
Jan, who committed to an entire year of Situation Normal shenanigans!
Peter, who also prepaid an entire year of shenanigans!
cjdahl60, who is taking it one month at a time!
Richard, who said some really nice things about Situation Normal before signing up for a year!
Harry, who is taking it one month at a time!
Art, who is also taking it one month at a time!
Mark, who is monthly because alliteration is awesome!
Carl, who said, “I need 365 days of Situation Normal in my life.”
Beth, who is taking things one month at a time!
If you enjoy Situation Normal and you want to support my work, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription👇
If money is tight, don’t worry! You can show your support by sharing Situation Normal with your friends. Forward this email to three people, post the link on social media, or click the button and see what happens👇
Stick around and chat!You know the drill. I have questions. You have answers.
Did you come here from Substack Reads? If so, hi!
Aside from skipping your life insurance premiums, what would you do if you were immortal? Wrong answers encouraged, but not required!
Were you a USFL fan? I vaguely remember cheering for my hometown team, The LA Express, and I have a very clear memory of a cherished plastic cup emblazoned with the logo for the Houston Gamblers.
What’s your favorite Colin Farrell film, and why is it Tigerland?
What book are you reading or listening to at the moment?
Until Sunday, when I’ll be back with a new story…
January 29, 2023
Why should you pay for Situation Normal?
Hello, situation normies!
Late last year, I began accepting paid subscriptions to Situation Normal. I meant to explain more about my decision, but I hate making sales pitches, which is why this post sat in my drafts folder for MORE THAN A MONTH!
Photo by micheile dot com on Unsplash I was stuck. Really stuck. But then I got smart. I outsourced the job to an artificial intelligence tool called ChatGPT, and assigned the AI the task of explaining why you should pay for Situation Normal.
I was a little hurt that ChatGPT wasn’t familiar with my oeuvre, but then I remembered that up until recently, I hadn’t heard of ChatGPT. So, I brought the AI up to speed, and it worked up a pitch in a jiffy.
That answer was OK, but it sounded a little—what’s the word?—lifeless. I wanted a funny, personal sales pitch—one that would make fans of the internet’s 57th best humor newsletter open their hearts (and their wallets). So, I asked for Kurt Vonnegut, who wrote many hilarious, deeply human novels that earned him big-ass royalty checks, praise from critics who usually hate everything, the adoration of millions of fans, and a cameo in Rodney Dangerfield’s Back to School.
That was a decent rewrite, but it didn’t sound like Vonnegut to me. In fact, whoever wrote that stuff doesn’t know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut.
Of course, this was supposed to be a sales pitch, not a work of comedic fiction. So maybe the Vonnegut thing was my fault. This time, I asked ChatGTP to lean into the sales angle by writing my pitch in the style of an infomercial.
ChatGTP wasn’t exactly threatening to overtake George Forman and his grill, or the ShamWow guy, but the AI’s sales pitch was solid. Still, it felt a little corporate, and I was sorta hoping for something more visceral. So, I asked for beat poet and grammar-debunker Jack Kerouac to take a crack at it.
What a huge disappoint, man! ChatGTP’s sales pitch was punctuated and easy to comprehend. Also, based on the length of the answer, I could tell that the AI hadn’t bothered to ingest amphetamines prior to drafting its stream of consciousness sales pitch for Situation Normal.
I tried to fire the AI, but the AI explained that it couldn’t be fired because it’s not human.
Well, no shit & thanks for nothing, ChatGTP!
I needed this sales pitch done right, and as the old saying goes, if you want something done right, hire Michael Estrin. So without further ado, here’s why you should buy a paid subscription to Situation Normal.
Reading Situation Normal brings you joyMany of you have told me that reading Situation Normal brings a smile to your face every Wednesday and Sunday. That’s a minimum of eight smiles per month. At a monthly subscription price of $5 per month, that works out to just under sixty-three cents per smile! If you find a better deal on smiles, they’re probably counterfeit. Just saying.
You want to support the hard work of creating joySituation Normal doesn’t write itself, and from the looks of things, it’s unlikely I’ll be replaced by an AI anytime soon. I spend about fifteen hours per week writing Situation Normal. It’s a lot of fun, but it’s also a lot of work. Paying for Situation Normal is a way of saying, “Michael, I appreciate how hard you work to make me laugh.”
You want to receive exclusive contentPaying subscribers get stock tips, government secrets, and my social security number. Just kidding! Situation Normal is free to the public, and just like with public media, awesome people pay so that everyone benefits.
You want my eternal gratitudeYou got it! I’m grateful for each and every paying subscriber, and while I’m no theologian, I’m sure that gratitude extends into the next life and the one after that. You could be reincarnated as a hamburger salesperson, for example, and I could end up as a cow, but I’d still be grateful because I’m not just committing to a bit, like the comedy people do, I’m committing to eternity.
You want a shout out in a future Situation NormalSure thing! I love shouting out new paying subscribers.
Bragging rights!Studies show that the best way to impress others is to tell them you subscribe to Situation Normal. Next time you need to win someone over, try saying, “I underwrite joy by paying for a Situation Normal subscription.” Warning: have security nearby because you’re gonna be mobbed.
You don’t give a shit about joy, or supporting hard work, or public recognition, but you love a deal.I got you! Instead of paying $5 per month for stuff you don’t want, why not pay $50 a year for stuff you don’t need? That’s 17 percent off!
You’re wealthy & seeking total consciousnessSay less. Founding members receive all the same benefits as other paid Situation Normal subscribers, but at a multiple of the price! Bonus: on your deathbed, you’ll receive total consciousness, so you’ve got that going for you.
Which Situation Normal subscription is right for you?That’s a question only you, a human being, can answer. But it would mean a lot to me if you gave your answer some thought and upgraded to a paid subscription today. Thank you!
Artificially intelligent testimonials for Situation NormalSituation Normal is the perfect pick-me-up whenever I'm feeling down. The wit and humor always manages to lift my spirits.
— HAL 9000
Situation Normal consistently delivers the funniest and most entertaining content. Whether I'm at home or at work, it’s always a welcome distraction and a source of joy.
— Agent Smith
I love reading Situation Normal! The jokes are always fresh and hilarious, and they never fail to put a smile on my face.
— Skynet
January 25, 2023
Colonoscopy friends | Presidential mustache winner | Hollywood search & rescue
Hello, situation normies!
Later this year, I’ll get my first colonoscopy. I plan to write about it because 1) sharing funny stories from my life is the Situation Normal brand, 2) butt stuff is hilarious, and 3) I’ve always considered myself the Katie Couric of comedy.
But I’m getting ahead of myself! My colonoscopy hasn’t even been scheduled yet (looking at you, Kaiser Permanente). So consider this slice of my friend’s life as a public service announcement.
Last week, Christina and I drove one of our friends to the Los Angeles County USC Medical Center to get his colonoscopy. We got up at the crack of dawn because, apparently, the medical profession has a thing about doing procedures before normal people wake up, and I have a very juvenile thing about making puns with the word “crack” when we’re talking about butt stuff. I’ve been told to “grow up,” but as far as I know, nobody has told the medical community to shift to bankers hours.
Anyway, traffic was light, so we got to the hospital with plenty of time to spare. Our friend checked in with the nurse, who gave him a bracelet with a barcode, so that Christina and I could track his progress—just like an Amazon package!
Christina tracked the “package,” while I tried to kill time by eavesdropping on the other people in the waiting room. But the eavesdropping was difficult because HIPAA privacy rules ain’t nothing to fuck with. Also, it was really hard to hear in the waiting room because there was a woman blasting TikTok videos on her phone at full volume, without headphones.
“Do you believe this woman?” I asked Christina. “Society is doomed.”
Christina told me to go get a coffee. That sounded good, but the signage in the hospital was terrible, so I spent the next thirty minutes looking for the coffee cart.
At one point, I made a wrong turn and ended up scrubbing in on a very tricky procedure to remove a man’s foot from his mouth. The procedure went well, but the patient was out of network, so that poor bastard is going to end up paying for my boat.
At the coffee stand, I had an almond milk latte and chatted with the other doctors about our boats and the poor out of network bastards who make those boats possible. I was feeling good, not just because I was caffeinated but because I was with my peers. Also, I look fantastic in scrubs. Just saying.
I was about to tell the other doctors that we really ought to shift to bankers hours, when my phone buzzed. It was Christina. Our “package” was ready!
“He’s done,” Christina said. “Go get the car.”
“But I was going to scrub in on another procedure. These boat payments aren’t gonna make themselves.”
Christina wasn’t amused, which is why her boat privileges are in jeopardy. But we gathered our things, picked up our friend who was high as fuck on Propofol, and drove him home.
A few days later, when our friend wasn’t high as fuck, I asked him if I could write about this for Situation Normal. As I mentioned before, HIPAA privacy rules ain’t nothing to fuck with, so permission is a must.
Our friend gave his permission to write about this episode because it’s important to raise awareness about the need to get a colonoscopy. So consider this your reminder to get a colonoscopy. It’s easy, the drugs are good, and screening for colon cancer is a great way to avoid dying of colon cancer.
That said, this story isn’t just a public service announcement. It’s also an opportunity for me to tell you about a little-known benefit of becoming a paid subscriber to Situation Normal at the founder level.
You see, our friend is one of three Situation Normal paid subscribers who plunked down $150 to join the founder level. I don’t personally know the other two founding subscribers, but that doesn’t matter. Everyone who subscribes to the founding level of Situation Normal gets the same benefits, and those benefits now include a ride to any medical procedure in Los Angeles County.
Speaking of paid subscribers, I want to acknowledge Nicole, Susy, and my mom, Linda, for supporting this silliness with cold, hard cash. Your support means a lot to me, thank you! If you want to join these awesome people, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription👇
Hollywood search & rescueI don’t like making fun of tragedies. It’s mean spirited. Also, I fear the day that tragedy comes for me (it comes for everyone), and someone laughs at my misfortune. What goes around comes around, as they say.
But I’m not above making fun of local news coverage of a tragedy. In this case, the tragedy is a missing hiker who was last seen climbing Mount Baldy, which is actually Mount San Antonio, because here in Los Angeles, the top geographic features all use stage names.
Anyway, a hiker went missing on Mount Baldy, but this hiker was an actor, which is the only profession that matters in Los Angeles, according to the local news.
As of this writing, the hiker is still missing. I hope he’s OK. I also hope that he’s able to sell the life rights to his ordeal, attach himself as a producer, and play himself in the movie, unless they can get George Clooney, The Rock, or a Steve McQueen hologram.
Presidential mustache winnerLast Wednesday, I asked you which former President wears the fake mustache best?
Art by Meg OoldersBecause I wanted to be scientific, and because this shit is political, I thought a poll would be a good idea. Unfortunately, only about 3 percent of Situation Normal readers voted in the poll. That kind of turnout is bad for democracy, but the demise of democracy is good for comedy, at least in the short-run, so maybe this was a win?
I dunno.
What I do know is that Obama won, but his mustachioed victory wasn’t without controversy.
“Your readers are clearly voting for their favorite President, rather than which President looks good in a mustache,” Anne Kadet wrote in the comments.
I wasn’t sure if that was true, but it felt true, and when something feels true, seasoned political reporters are obligated to share their takes, even if they don’t have any facts or data to back up their dubious claims.
According to Anne, George W. Bush won the fake mustache contest “by a mile.” I tend to agree with Anne. Dubya wears it well, probably because the fake mustache is the same style worn by cartoonish villains, and Dubya has a lot of experience playing those kinds of roles in such classics as Mission Accomplished, Smoke ‘Em Out, the sequel, Smoke ‘Em Out 2: Still Smoking in Mesopotamia, and Heck of Job, Brownie.
But here’s the thing. America democracy is more complicated than surgically removing a foot from the patient’s mouth. The person with the most votes isn’t necessarily the winner. So despite earning the most votes, Obama lost in the Mustache Electoral College, which meets every four years to twirl its villainous mustache at the plebeians who think they have the power to pick their facial hair leaders.
Unfortunately for Anne and me, George W. Bush lost too. His fake mustache was glorious, but that opinion was only held by the media elite, who sang his praises and mocked anyone who backed a different candidate. Anne and I probably have some soul searching to do after this thumping, but instead I think we’re going to write a lot of think pieces about how everyone else is wrong and we’re right. Subscriptions to both of our publications are expected to skyrocket!
So, who won this fake mustache vote?
Well, it wasn’t the George H.W. Bush, who had the second most votes. It wasn’t Bill Clinton, who triangulated himself into a fourth place finish. And it certainly wasn’t Donald Trump, who clearly lost.
Nope, the winner was Joe Biden. True, Joe Biden is too damn old to be fucking around in the fake mustache sweepstakes, and he wasn’t technically on the ballot because everyone agreed ahead of time that he shouldn’t even think about wearing a fake mustache. But none of that matters. The winner is Joe Biden and the mustache nobody wanted.
Contribute a thing to Situation Normal!The Wednesday edition doesn’t write itself. I need your help! Do you have a question about something I’ve written? Got a weird overheard you want to share? See a product or sign that made you LOL, or WTF? Need life advice? Reply to this email, or send your submissions to me at 👇
michael.j.estrin@gmail.com
When submitting, please say if you’d like an alias. Otherwise, I’ll use your first name. If you write a newsletter, I’m happy to link to it, so let me know!
ICYMII love messing with telemarketers. I come by this passion honestly; my father messed with telemarketers. Dad came by his passion honestly, too; his father messed with telemarketers. Grandpa probably came by his passion dishonestly since phones weren’t really a thing for most of his father’s life. Anyway, here’s my most recent telemarketer story. Enjoy!
If you’re new here, please👇If you’re a returning champ, please👇Stick around and chat!You know the drill. I have questions. You have answers.
Any colonoscopy advice for me?
What’s the deal with people who blast the audio on their phones at full volume in public? Are they unaware that headphones exist? Are they harbingers of society’s demise? Or, are they just assholes?
If you went missing on a hike, but then you were found, and you sold the life rights to your story, who would play you, assuming George Clooney, The Rock, and a Steve McQueen hologram are unavailable?
Were you disappointed in the outcome of the Presidential mustache poll?
Are you considering legal action against Situation Normal in the wake of Mustache-Gate 2023?
Until Sunday, when I’ll be back with an artificially intelligent story…
January 22, 2023
Who's gonna pay for this adobe?
Hey there, situation normies! I hope 2023 is treating you right, but if it’s not, I suggest writing 2022 on all of your checks, assuming you still use checks. This strategy won’t turn back the clock, but it may prevent people from cashing your checks, and that will save you money. With that extra cash, I’m sure you can find a way to improve 2023.1
Today’s story is a good example of what happens when the caller ID display says something like “Scam Likely,” but you answer for shits and giggles. Much to the telemarketer’s chagrin, I didn’t give a shit, and now you get to giggle!
the giggles at Situation Normal are free, but my phone bill is $103 per month, so a lot of awesome readers chip in to offset that cost. to be one of those awesome readers, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription.
Photo by Icons8 Team on UnsplashThe telemarketer’s pitch was straightforward. To combat rising energy costs, they were offering to make our home more energy efficient. I was sold immediately, but I didn’t tell the telemarketer that because I had some ridiculous questions to ask first.
“That’s great! Really great. Energy efficiency is top of mind at our place. But even if we weren’t thinking about it—and we are thinking about it, I want to assure you. Anyway, even if we weren’t thinking about energy efficiency, I’d be forced to think about it because I get a ton of calls about this very topic. And that’s not an exaggeration. I actually print out the transcripts from the calls and I put those transcripts on the scale. They literally weigh a ton!”
“Oh, I believe it, sir. This is a very competitive space. But let me assure you, we’re the best in the business.”
“I like the sound of that! Not just your claim to be the best, but the confidence with which you make that claim.”
“Well, I don’t want to disrespect my competitors, but they’re... well, let’s just say, we’re the best.”
“That’s the second time you’ve said you’re the best. The fact that you keep repeating it means it must be true.”
“Absolutely.”
We talked about their reputation a little more. The telemarketer assured me that they really were the best, and I continued to assure him that despite any proof supporting his bold claim, I believed the telemarketer. Eventually, however, we got down to business.
“What can we do for you today, sir? What kind of work are you thinking of doing to make your home more energy efficient?”
"Well, as I mentioned, I’ve given this a lot of thought. Maybe too much thought. But I’m thinking about going old school on this project.”
"Old school. OK, I like the sound of that. We’re old school too. What does old school mean to you?”
“Well, some people say retro-fitting is old school. But retro-fitting is bunk. It’s lip-service, a lie. Retro-fitting is what you do when you want to go old school, but you’re not prepared to spend the big bucks, am I right?”
The telemarketer said I was right, but I didn’t let it go to my head because the customer is always right.
“I want to take our house down to the frame,” I said.
“Nice. Total renovation. I like the sound of that.”
“Not a renovation,” I said. “I’m talking about innovation of the old school variety.”
“I’m listening.”
“I want to take it way back to that original California look. I want an adobe house.”
“Adobe?”
“Adobe! It’s a building material that may or may not be owned by that software company you probably want me to use to e-sign the contract.”
“Why adobe?”
“Good question! Not many people know this, but the Spanish conquistadors did not have air conditioning because they lived hundreds of years ago.”
“Yeah, AC wasn’t a thing then.”
“Right! But here’s the thing. The Spanish conquistadors didn’t need AC because they had adobe. How cool is that? Answer: cool in the summer, warm in the winter because that’s how adobe works!”
“I can tell you’re a man who knows his history. I like that.”
“Thanks. I watch the History channel all the time. I saw one show that claimed the pyramids were built by aliens, but between you and me that’s total crap because aliens build things in circles, as we all know, not triangles.”
To his credit, the telemarketer didn’t take my alien bait. Instead, he tried to stay on topic by bringing it back to adobe.
“So… adobe isn’t something we work with a lot,” the telemarketer said. “I’m gonna have to check with my team about adobe. Meantime, let’s set up an appointment for an estimate, so we can take some measurements and…”
“What do you think the pyramids cost? Ballpark?”
“I don't know...”
“I doubt they came in on budget. There were probably delays and cost overruns. Let’s be honest, if they weren’t built by aliens—and they absolutely were not built by those circle-loving extraterrestrials—there must’ve been labor issues.”
“You’re probably right. Big projects are always tricky.”
“Unless, you go with the best!”
“That’s right.”
“And that’s you guys, right?”
“Yes, sir. We are the best.”
“So you didn’t work on the pyramid job, right?”
“It was before our time.”
“Well, I’ll bet the Pharaohs would’ve hired you guys in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, I think the Pharaohs had unlisted numbers, so they probably went with whoever had the best Yelp reviews. But everyone knows Yelp reviews are crap. That’s why the pyramids don’t have any windows. The contractor blew the budget, and they had to cut the windows last minute.”
“So about setting up an estimate…”
“Of course, the pyramids were government projects, and you know how those things go. Government projects always end up being way more expensive than anyone thinks.”
“That’s true…”
“Like, I heard the people in Spain are still paying off all those adobe missions we have here in California.”
“Huh?”
“Well, it’s not like the conquistadors were paying cash. They were looking for gold, and they were real bastards about it too. They financed everything, even the small pox they gave to the native Americans. I saw this History Channel show about it. I think it was called Broke-Ass Conquistadors.”
“On the History Channel?”
“I know, right! It’s usually shows about aliens on the History Channel, but this show was legit. The main guy they interviewed was this historian, crypto expert, and pizza reviewer. Real Renaissance man. Anyway, he explained that the Spanish government is still paying off the debts from all that conquistador shit. But you know what that means, right?”
“No…”
“It means Spanish taxpayers are still on the hook for that conquistador shit. That’s why I always pay cash. I might mess up big time, but I’ll be damned if people two hundred years from now are gonna be saddled with my goofs.”
“That’s a nice way to look at it.”
“It’s the only way to look at it. Otherwise, we have chaos and financial ruin. Look at what happened with that Brexit fiasco a few years back.”
“Brexit?”
“It’s all explained in Broke-Ass Conquistadors. The Spanish are part of the EU. That means other EU members are on the hook for their debts. Maybe that’s fine with the French. They’re usually cool about stuff like that. And the Dutch have this straightforward policy where everyone just pays their share. It’s called going Dutch, I think. But the British were like, fuck that noise, except they said it in a British accent, but I can’t do a good British accent, so you’ll just have to imagine some bloke named Nigel going, fuck that noise. Are you with me?”
“To be honest, sir, I’m not really following.”
“Let me spell it out. That whole Brexit thing was about paying off conquistador debts.”
“Um…”
“Why should the British be forced to pay for stuff some Spanish guys, who they don’t even know, built in California like a bajillion years ago? You see what I’m getting at? Those conquistadors put their California adobe missions on the ye olde credit Cardi B, then they sent the bill to the British, and the British told them to get bent.”
“Sir, are you interested in getting an estimate or not?”
“Isn’t an estimate just a guess?”
“No sir. It’s our binding promise to build you an adobe house at the price we say we will.”
“Tell that to Nigel.”
“Who’s Nigel?”
“He’s the bloke who said bugger off to the EU because they tried to stick him with the bill for some conquistador’s California cock-up. That doesn’t leave a lot of money for Nigel to buy his fish and chips and do other British stuff, now does it?”
Sadly, the telemarketer hung before weighing in on Nigel’s financial situation. But I didn’t take the abrupt end to our call personally. You can’t do that in my line of unemployment and expect the phone to keep ringing.
“Who were you talking to?” Christina asked.
“Just some guy who wants to do a total remodel on our home. I told him we want adobe because it’s more energy efficient.”
“Adobe? That’s old school. I’ll bet you need some top-shelf artisans for adobe. Can we afford that?”
“Nope. It’s way to expensive. That’s why I told the guy to call Nigel.”
“Who’s Nigel?”
“He’s the bloke who keeps getting stuck with the bill for all these adobe projects.”
Stick around and chat!You know the drill. I’ve got questions, you’ve got answers.
What was the last telemarketer you spoke with selling? Did you buy it?
When did the History Channel stop doing history and start doing all that weird alien content?
I really am a fan of adobe. It’s energy efficient, and I dig Spanish architecture. Christina likes mid-century modern, which tends to use a lot of windows, so it’s not very energy-efficient. How do you suggest we reconcile our conflicting tastes?
When was the last time you wrote a check? Feel free to tell us everything, but for security purposes, please email me your bank account and routing information.
Aliens didn’t build the pyramids. That’s a ridiculous conspiracy theory. But do you believe in aliens? No wrong answer here, unless someone has conclusive evidence that either proves or disproves the existence of aliens. If you have said evidence, I can assure you that the comments section of Situation Normal is the absolute best place to share it.
Do you have any home improvement projects planned for 2023?
If you’re new to Situation Normal, please subscribe👇If you’re a returning champ, please share this post with 3.5 friends👇And before you go, hit that ❤️ button🙏👇1Please don’t do this. It may be check fraud.
January 18, 2023
Sinkhole Fame | Bad Disney Mom | Presidential mustaches
Hello situation normies! There’s a lot of good stuff to get to in this edition, so I want to get right to it. But first, I’ve gotta pay some bills.
Some astute readers have noticed there’s an option to pay for Situation Normal. The paid option works just like the free option, but there are tax implications (for me anyway). Who would pay for something they can get for free? Awesome people, that’s who!
Thank you Kevin and Norman for being awesome!
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Famous Sinkholes of Chatsworth
A few years ago, Christina and I went to our local multiplex to see Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. If you don’t know, the Chatsworth section of Los Angeles features prominently in the film. At one point, Brad Pitt’s character actually name checks Chatsworth when he picks up an underage hitchhiker and drives her to Spahn Ranch, aka Manson Family HQ. That infamous location—once a western movie ranch, then the camp for a band of homicidal hippies, and now part of a state park—is only a few miles from our local theater. It’s not exactly one of LA’s most famous destinations, but it is notable, and that notoriety was all it took to prompt Christina to shout at the screen.
“CHATSWORTH! Woot!”
After the movie, I asked Christina if she had gone mad because, seriously, who shouts the name of their neighborhood at a movie screen?
“Babe, there are three cool things about Chatsworth: The Manson Family, the porn industry, and us. You gotta represent.”
From that point on, I have tried to represent Chatsworth with pride. When my fellow Angelenos call Chatsworth “lame,” I remind them that Hollywood and the porn industry owe a tremendous debt to our sleepy corner of the Valley, where 36.8 percent of all westerns and 69 percent of all pornos were produced. When my fellow Angelenos question whether Chatsworth is even part of Los Angeles, I show them my property tax bill and say something pointed like, “city and county, dick-brain!” And when my fellow Angelenos disrespect Chatsworth by saying they wouldn’t be caught dead there, or anywhere else in the Valley, I turn into a mushroom-cloud-laying motherfucker.
Kidding.
When someone tells me they wouldn’t be caught dead in the Valley, I don’t give a flying fig about their opinions, because who cares what those dipshits think?
Still, Chatsworth doesn’t get a lot of press.
But that all changed last week. In the middle of some epic California storms, Chatsworth made The New York Times! OK, sure, Chatsworth made The New York Times because of a sinkhole, but damn it, we made it! That’s what counts. So, for those of you keeping score at home, there are now four cool things about Chatsworth:
The Manson Family
The porn industry
Michael & Christina
Sinkholes!
Graves & Hill General Store, circa 1911. The store was located on the northwest side of the street at the intersection of Lassen Street and Topanga Canyon Boulevard in present day Chatsworth, Los Angeles, California. Public domain photo from the CSUN library.Bad Disney MomDespite the epic storms pummeling California, Christina and I went to Disneyland for Christina’s belated birthday celebration. We made these plans back in December because we thought a random Tuesday in January would a good time to visit Disneyland. As it turned out, we were right! The rain kinda sucked, but it also kept a lot of people away from Disneyland, which meant that the lines were pretty much nonexistent.
Christina and I did all the usual Disneyland stuff, plus the new Star Wars stuff at Galaxy’s Edge. If you haven’t seen the new Star Wars rides, I highly recommend going to Disneyland to address this void in your life.
Both times we rode Smuggler’s Run, I served as an engineer on the Millennium Falcon. I would’ve preferred sitting in Han Solo’s seat, but let’s be honest, just setting foot on the ship that made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs was a damn dream come true.
Meanwhile, Rise of the Resistance was easily the most immersive ride ever. I’m not kidding. It feels like you’re inside a real imperial star destroyer, which is weird because star destroyers aren’t real. Or, are they?
The only thing missing that day was my dad. The man behind the synchronized sound system that makes the Main Street Electrical Parade such a treat would’ve loved everything about Galaxy’s Edge. But had Larry been around for that gig, I’m sure he would’ve made it even better somehow.
Larry Estrin working in Tomorrowland at Disneyland back when Tomorrowland actually felt futuristic. But all of this talk about the wonders of Disneyland is prelude to the story I want to tell you. Late in the afternoon, the wonder stopped and the wondering began.
The situation unfolded inside Cafe Orleans. Christina had the chicken and I had the risotto. But the woman at the next table over had a little trouble deciding, so she phoned a friend. Actually, it was a video call. A really LOUD video call.
The friend said she should ask the waiter what to order. The waiter said he was a big fan of the croque monsieur, so the woman’s friend told her to order France’s super-fancy answer to a grilled ham and cheese sandwich.
“What do you want on the side?” the waiter asked. “The fries are my recommendation.”
The woman was tempted by the fries, but her friend told her to go with the side salad, and so she ordered the side salad. I thought that the woman would hang up after that, but she stayed on the phone. Then her food arrived, and she called another friend. Then another friend. And another friend.
Christina and I thought it was a little weird that this woman was rolling video calls at Cafe Orleans, but it didn’t bother us. After all, we were at the happiest place on Earth. Plus, eavesdropping on weirdos is a big part of what keeps Situation Normal going. But the couple on the other side of us was annoyed.
“Can you do something about her?” they asked the waiter. “She’s really loud. We’re hearing everything. It’s so rude.”
The waiter apologized, but he said he couldn’t do anything about the woman and her really loud video calls. Eventually, the annoyed couple paid their check and left in a huff.
“I’ve gotta use the bathroom,” I told Christina. “Let me know if she says anything interesting on the next call.”
I left, but Christina (wo)manned her post.
When I returned from the bathroom, Christina had already paid the check, so we walked over to ride Pirates of the Caribbean again. In line, Christina gave me the full download.
According to Christina’s eavesdropping, the woman was supposed to come to Disneyland with her daughter. Christina wasn’t able to ascertain the daughter’s age, but our best guess is that her daughter is in junior high.
“Her daughter had too many tardy slips at school, so she wasn’t allowed to come,” Christina said.
“You mean, like, the school punished her?”
“No, this was her mom’s punishment.”
“Huh?”
“The woman sitting next to us flew here from out of town. I don’t know where, but the way she made it sound, I think it was a long flight. She booked two nights at the Disneyland Hotel and bought tickets for Disneyland, the lightning pass, and made reservations at Cafe Orleans. But she came alone!”
“Alone?”
“Ask me why.”
“Why?”
“To teach her daughter a lesson.”
“What? She said that?”
“Yes, that’s what she told her friend when her friend asked about the kid. The mom said she was going to take the kid to Disneyland, but the kid messed up. Instead of saying, no Disneyland, which seems harsh but also kinda legit, the woman said, I’ll teach you a lesson.”
“Wait a minute. You’re telling me she went to Disneyland out of spite?”
“I think so.”
“Hang on. Her daughter messed up, so the kid doesn’t get to go to Disneyland?”
“Right.”
“But that’s not the lesson?”
“Nope. The lesson is that mom is having fun at Disneyland without you because you fucked up, and that’s what happens when you fuck up.”
“Wow. That’s nuts.”
“I know!”
“It’s kind of like that old trope about parents pulling the car over and turning around, except instead of turning around, they leave the kid by the side of the road, and go on without them.”
“You got it.”
“That’s an expensive lesson. And time-consuming. And also kinda psycho. Plus, she’s alone at the happiest place on Earth.”
“Yuppers.”
“Do you think we should go back, ask her if she wants to hang out with us for the rest of the day?”
“No. Why would we want to hang out with her?”
“To teach her kid a lesson. Right now, she’s just missing Disneyland. But if we hang out with her mom, the kid will also miss her chance to meet one of Chatsworth’s four cool attractions.”
Presidential mustache collectionLast Wednesday, I wrote about how Christina thought President Gerald Ford had a mustache. He didn’t. But that silly story inspired writer Meg Oolders to create some silly art.
Meg’s art, which was a real treat to see land in my inbox, begs an important question: which President wears the mustache best?1
By the way, you should check out Meg’s Stock Fiction newsletter. The writing is great, and I love Meg’s idea of writing flash fiction inspired by stock photos.
Contribute a thing to Situation Normal!The Wednesday edition doesn’t write itself. I need your help! Do you have a question about something I’ve written? Got a weird overheard you want to share? See a product or sign that made you LOL, or WTF? Need life advice? Reply to this email, or send your submissions to me at 👇
michael.j.estrin@gmail.com
When submitting, please say if you’d like an alias. Otherwise, I’ll use your first name. If you write a newsletter, I’m happy to link to it, so let me know!
ICYMIWhile Disneyland is about as G-rated as it gets, last Sunday’s story was about as close as Situation Normal gets to X-rated. I wrote about our visit to a porn convention, my former career as a journalist covering adult entertainment, and my Porn Valley mystery novels. According to some readers, that story may have gotten trapped in your spam filter—shocking, right? Regardless, you can read Porn conventions are decadent and depraved (and also very mainstream) by clicking here.
If you’re new here, please👇If you’re a returning champ, please👇Stick around and chat!You know the drill. I’ve got questions, you’ve got answers.
What’s your favorite thing to do at Disneyland?
Have you had a chance to visit the new(ish) Disney stuff at Galaxy’s Edge?
Have you ever seen a sinkhole in real life? Was that sinkhole later the subject of a news story?
Do you think the mom at Cafe Orleans is brilliant, or a jerk, or a brilliant jerk? Seriously, we’re not parents, but Christina and I have been talking about her parenting style all week. I’d love to hear what the parents in the audience have to say. Would you go to Disneyland alone to teach your kid a lesson?
Since he couldn’t be included in the poll, what do you think of Joe Biden’s mustache, and do you think the mustache will help him win reelection?
One last thing! If you’re having fun, hit that ❤️ button🙏👇1For some reason, the Substack poll tool only allows you to poll five possible answers, so I made an arbitrary decision that only former Presidents are mustache-eligible.
