entertainment – Page 3 – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Whether it was “Pow!” or “Bam! Zoom!” it was usually the preface to “Right in the Kisser!” That’s what Jackie Gleason’s Ralph Cramden would exclaim to his wife Alice in The Honeymooners when she got under his skin. For some reason SEO experts think we’re attracted to this kind of cartoonish, wrestlemania-type of violence and have slobbishly skewed that assumption into the seemingly never ending stream of headlines saying “So and So Slams So and So” or “So and So Destroys So and So.” Internet publications and ad mills have followed the gravy train right along. “Rips,” “blasts,” and “bashes” also seem popular.

This type of click bait headline writing has become so ever present, overused, and tired that it has certainly lost all meaning to anyone except the chronically bored or the algorithmically programmed. As lazy as it is, I guess it works. Which is not only a sad commentary on humanity but a sadder one on algorithms and the SEO industry.

I mean where’s the creativity? Why not use “lambasts,” “harangues,” “admonishes,” “berates,” “objurgates?” Or for those with syllabaphobia how about “dress down,” “haul over the coals,” “lays into,” “lace into, or “slag off?”

And just imagine how many of those boringly inept and inutile headlines are being fed into AI training engines.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

On the merry-go-round of life some things we just know. Some things we just know but find that others want to pretend something different. Here are some things we just know.

Donald Trump is a criminal, a rapist, an insurrectionist, a scumbag, a loser, a lousy liar, and more beyond redemption than most of the evil people in recorded history. He’d love to top even that list. He wants to dismantle the US Constitution and any other aspect of governance as long as he can stay out of a prison jump suit that might clash with the color of his makeup while grifting his way to the grave.

The Republican Party is the largest collecton of cowards and liars ever gathered under the guise of a political party, afraid of any shadow with a hint of orange in it, and terrified of the ignorant constiutents they represent and claim to love. They deserve whatever comes from their cowardice and lying. The rest of us don’t.

Elon Musk is a drug-addled fool who just happens to control a few companies, somehow has a national security clearance, a hoard of wealth, and could care less about anything other than for whatever is in his brain at the moment. Or the next.

Too many American voters don’t know which way to turn because either fork in the road seems like a tortured path. Too many American voters need to pay better attention, because if they are not careful they’ll lose the ability to make choose how severe the torture is going forward.

Big Tech isn’t Big Tech anymore. Big tech, like most other human endeavors, is in the Big “Let’s Make All The Money We Can before the merry-go-round stops” game. The merry-go-round always stops.

Artificial Intelligence can be both a boon and a bust. It will be both. You don’t have to be intelligent or real to see that coming.

Social Media can be fun. Social Media can be harmful. In either case, only if you let it.

Wars are destructive, foolish expressions of ego and and desire. Rules and Laws of War are silly made up sing-songs to allow men to destroy each other and anyone in their way in service to those egos.

The Media is a mess of its own making in covering any of the above, and seems to enjoy swimming in its own slop with its mouth agape. Anyone in their right minds would have stopped the bleeding by now. Unless they just enjoy self-harm. But if it bleeds it leads. Even it’s draining the lifeblood out of you.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.