Stand Up or Sit Down?

For your consideration, the harvest of convalescence.

The Fanner 50 Smoking Cap Pistol

For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;

When William Wordsworth chillaxed in 1802, very likely under the influence of opium, he was thinking of daffodils. Whatever gets you there, I guess. But I can totally relate to this experience. As you may recall, I have spent the past four weeks, mostly flat on my back, with a slightly disintegrating spine. I was also under the influence of opiates and benzodiazepines. A lot of pain, but a fair share of bliss, too. Say yes to drugs.

But here’s the thing: In that condition, while it was impossible really to read or type, that inward eye was fully functional. Unlike the famous English junkie poet, though, I did not devote my imaginings to spring flowers. I devoted it to jokes, some that I’ve toyed with for years, most the fruits of my current delirium. It’s an exercise that is simply essential to my being; I’ve been compulsively conjuring punchlines for about 55 years. On my tax returns, under “occupation,” I enter “parasite.” I can’t help myself.

Now a quick word about golf. Among amateurs, the average handicap is minus 14, which means you would you get to remove 14 strokes from your score to approach par. That’s ordinary civilians. Then there are professionals. There are 0-handicap club pros, who give lessons and sell you $120 Chinese sweaters. There are +3 touring pros, who compete for money. There are +7 elite pros, who week after week win most of the money and major championships. And then there are +9 generational talents, such as Tiger Woods in his prime. Technically, they all play the same game, but, really, they don’t. Their skills are worlds apart.

OK, comedy-wise, I’m a club pro — paid for decades to be intermittently funny in print, on the air and onstage — but nobody’s idea of a standup comic. Therefore, in my vague and pensive mood, drugged into fucking oblivion, I’ve been musing in my dotage about whether that’s a mountain I could climb. So, amid the narco haze of convalescence, I assembled a stand-up routine. What can I tell you? I just did.

But is it worthy of performing before an audience? Dunno. I’ve only done that once, for 5 minutes, 20 years ago at a New York charity event. It went okay. John Mulaney I’m not, but laughter took place.

So what I’m doing here is workshopping my set. Not on stage, but from the comfort of my own couch. It’s risky, because standup is performance and these are just pixels. But before I figure out a way to ambulate to an actual club room, this will have to do.

WARNINGS: 1) It’s long. 2) As you’ve by now, as a subscriber, divined, I’m a potty mouth, and some of my stuff toes the line. And by “toes” I mean “crosses.” In the comedy racket, they say, “He works blue.” Me, sort of aquamarine. Soooorrry.

Please let me know what you think. Your judgment will determine my next move.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Bob. and you are about to experience the supernatural. Because I come from both your personal future, and from your nation’s past. Never mind the microphone and bottled water. I’m no comic. I’m a fucking time capsule.

Dude, I am so old. Who here took chemistry or physics in high school? Anyone? … All right, so you know that big chart of the Periodic Table of Elements? When I was in high school — 29 elements. Zinc was a rumor.

Is anybody here old enough to remember when Kennedy was shot? … Didn’t think so. I remember when Sputnik was shot. And two months later, so was Old Yeller. … Oh, for fuck’s sake. Really? OLD YELLER. A dog, a hero dog from the Disney movie. They put him down for rabies, which I assume is how it will end for Elon Musk. Anyway, it was a long time ago. I’m so old, I remember UHF. I remember syphilis. I remember floor wax. Do you even know what that was? It was wax. For the kitchen floor. And if you bought Glo-Coat, you could even prevent those stubborn black heel marks. And the bonus was, if the commercials were accurate, Glo-Coat made you fulfilled as a woman. So did instant Folgers coffee, which saved your marriage after your husband complained your coffee tastes like shit. So did Reddi-Whip. The slogan was: “How to hold a husband.” So … Reddi-Whip. I guess: bondage.

And while I’m on the subject, I remember ads featuring the rugged, desolate west, and sun-weathered cowboys lighting up Marlboros to prove their manhood. “Come to Where the Flavor Is. Come to Marlboro Country.” That was on TV day and night. No worries. Marlboros only killed 400 million people. About 68 Holocausts. No biggie.

When I was growing up, there was ONE ring tone. It went … rrrrnnnnnng.

Never mind smart phones and artificial intelligence or mankind’s greatest invention — which, by the way, is EZ Pass. When I was a little kid there were no … SEAT BELTS. It’s insane. “Seat belts” were my mother doing this: [extend arm]. Which she could do because I, her 7-year-old tot, was in the front seat, playing with my knife.

Yeah, a lot of people don’t realize this, but back in olden times, parents didn’t care whether their children lived or died. When my brothers and I were bored, my mother would send us outside to play. Alone. Where? ANYWHERE. My parents didn’t know and didn’t care. I could have hitchhiked to North Korea. They didn’t give a shit — as long I took the fucking garbage out first. I mean, every now and then they’d at least ask. My mom would say, “Oh, Bobby, I hope you aren’t going to the church to bother that sweet Father McElroy again. How would you like it if he was constantly coming in your rectory?”

Once, I ambled down to the woods and used a magnifying glass to set a 3-alarm fire. This is true. I have always loved science. Another time I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

I don’t want to leave you with the wrong impression of my parents. They loved me. I mean, they fed me and gave me birthday parties and, I must say, they were very forgiving about my serial arsons. Did you know that if you put a match to a model airplane, you can both extrude very gossamer threads of polystyrene plastic and also set a basement on fire? So, yeah, they were nice enough. But when I was sick, you know what they did not do? They never took me to the doctor. And, no, they weren’t Christian Scientists or some shit like that — or Catholic, by way. (I just made up that rapey-priest bit for the sake of … whaddya call it? Hating the Church for one of the greatest ongoing crimes and coverups in modern history … is why I made that up.) The fact is, my parents were Jewish — Jews so devout that on Shabbat, they absolutely would not put olives in their martinis.

But I swear to you on the life of Ted Cruz. If this next one’s a lie, may God strike him down — preferably by choking on donkey cum. But I digress. Get this: If the childhood me took sick, there would be no trip to the pediatrician. Ever. No matter how high my fever, no matter how much I cried. And do you know why? Because … our doctor came to our house. No shit. You idiots get a burrito delivered to your apartment and think you’re living large. I had a physician driving to my sick bed. DocDash. And he didn’t stand there afterward waiting for a tip. And he brought drugs.

Getting the gist here? I am old. And since we’re discussing medicine — last time you saw a doctor — what was the specialty? Sorry about the HIIPA violation. No details necessary. No shame. Dermatologist? … ok ... gastroenterologist? ... uh-huh … psychologist, ok. Good for you. [points to self] Paleontologist. They put me on a scale to check my weight and height. My age they get from carbon dating. Which I prefer to the other method, just slicing my dick in two and counting the rings. Either way, I’ve seen things that you just wouldn’t understand.

Men wore hats. Every day, wherever they went. I keep a photo over my desk of the rear entrance to the Dallas, Texas jail in November of 1963.  This wasn’t 1890. It was the 60s: free love, LSD, Beatlemania. But in this Dallas picture, there are 13 men and seven of them are wearing suits and skinny neckties and hats. The only one in business casual was Lee Harvey Oswald, who was too busy being shot to death to think about the dress code. The shooter was Jack Ruby, a mobbed up nightclub owner … in a hat.

And these hats must have been magic or something. At least in the movies,  when a guy entered a room and removed the hat, his hair was never mussed. Not even a little. How? I put on my Philadelphia Phillies ball cap for 5 minutes and when I take it off I look like a fucking chia pet. [pause] No, I’m not going to tell you what a Chia pet is. We’d be here all night. Just Google it, ok? Later. I’m warning you, though, it will make you wonder what God was even thinking.

The strange thing is, and it’s embarrassing, is that for years I myself have had an unrequited love for hats. I’ve tried maybe 50 times and spent, I dunno, about 10 fucktillion dollars to find a hat that makes me cool. Fedora. Porkpie. Irish snap brim. But it’s a fool’s errand. I can’t even think of a stupider fashion solution, unless maybe wearing Birkenstocks on purpose.

Because unless you start out as Brad Pitt or Britney Spears, the cure is wayyyy worse than the disease. Hats DO NOT make you look cool. Unless you are a musician performing onstage or dwelling in 1948, hats make you look like a douche. I’m talking about men. The hat is a neon sign that says “trying too hard” — which you probably are, because if you’re resorting to this solution, and I’m sorry to say this, you’re probably pretty ugly. It’s an act of desperation, basically. Even musicians. Especially musicians. Elvis Presley didn’t wear a hat. Elvis Costello always does. That’s all I will say on that subject. And God help you, God help you if you flip the front brim up. If you happen to see such a person, do not approach him. Move a safe distance away and call 911. Because this personal has decided he has nothing left to lose. He might not shoot himself or you, but there is an extremely high risk of him talking about a “cat” he knows. Probably a trumpeter. “Cat can wail.” Believe me, run. Run away.

Hat wearing, by the way, is the first cousin of pipe smoking, which is the douchiest thing a person can do that doesn’t involve the word “artisanal.”

Once again, I myself actually smoked a pipe for 25 years — but always behind closed doors. If a douchebag falls into douchebaggery in the garage and there is no one there to see it …

You know who doesn’t smoke a pipe? Andy Dick. Oh, he whipped out his pecker for far more people than ever saw his MTV show, but you wouldn’t catch him dead with a pipe in his mouth. Because people would judge him. Dignity, my friends, is on a sliding scale.

So, once again, my childhood was a different world. Women, like the lady in the Johnson’s Glo-Coat commercial, wore white gloves to go shopping. Jello was very big. There was no molly.

Oh, and those white gloves? They were skinned from baby goats. Princess Grace of Monaco loved baby-goat skin. Jackie Kennedy. Minnie Mouse. Yeah, mice wearing goats. Isn’t that like Tucker Carlson shitting snakes?

[Hold up hand like a traffic cop] I know. The joke doesn’t exactly make sense. But I so love the image, which I believe captures a larger truth. Conjure it again with me please. Tucker Carlson shitting snakes. Vipers. Squirming out and going right after his ball sack. If you prefer, Hannity works, too. Or Laura Ingraham. In fact, if I’d just said “Fox Shitting snakes,” the Minnie Mouse analogy would have worked much better. But I really love thinking of Tucker sharting asshole vipers. Just call me a romantic.

Oh, going back to white garments and my old age. Ever hear of milk men? It was a thing. This guy would come to your house, all decked out in a white uniform like he was an orderly in a psych ward or a bowler in a Pakistani cricket match, and he’d deliver glass bottles of milk. Or sour cream, cottage cheese, whatever. Drop ’em off and just leave. Every other week my mom would pay him with something we called “money.” These people were always just showing up: milk men and doctors and ladies to PMWD.

(Oh. “Play Mahjong While Drinking.”)

Ah, the halcyon days of yore. The biggest industry was steel. STEEL! Rugged! Loud! White hot molten metal! Girders. Bridge spans! Automobiles! Steel is now, I dunno, the 18^th largest American industry? Number 1, I believe, is pedicures.

I am amazed what is going on with women’s toes. I mean, there’s nothing new about nail polish. But now it’s some sort of artistic medium. Like dying Easter eggs or scrimshaw — phalanges scrimshaw. But at least carving pictures into whalebone is enduring. Pedicures have the life span of an Etch-a-Sketch.

Oh, fuck. I forgot. I will give you a refresher on that, even though they still make these things. It’s a sort of art toy. You turn two dials and draw really, really bad pictures with crooked graphite lines, and then when you see how shitty your drawing is — imagine an EKG of a flower — you shake the frame to clear to canvas. The technology is dated, but it’s still how Republicans want to run elections.

But pedicures. For a long time I wondered how this phenomenon just exploded onto the scene. So I did my own research, just as I did on vaccines and female ejaculation. And suddenly all was clear. It’s a conspiracy. The Pedicure Industrial Complex is in cahoots with another cartel: Big Flip Flop. These people are pure evil. They are conspiring to destroy the spines of an entire generation. I wouldn’t be surprised if the chiropractors had a piece of the action, either. Merchants of Sciatica. Fuck them.

Wait. WAIT. I am NOT inciting violence against chiropractors. Why would I when there are so many more dentists out there, stuffing cotton in your mouth so you can’t interrupt when they start telling you about their boat. And, don’t worry, I’m not going to shoot any dentists, either, because I don’t own a gun.

Not that I think 400 million guns in this country are too many, or that the NRA is Satan, or that the nation’s founders were actually serious when they said we have the right to bear arms as part of a “well-regulated militia” — versus any dickwad who just wants to feel like a cowboy, only these Marlboros have bullets. So don’t go all nitpicky on me, and, boohoo, those 100 gun deaths every day of every week of every year. Did anyone ever think that maybe those people had it coming? “I’m gonna go to a concert. I’m gonna go to Walmart. I’m gonna go to school.” Gimme a break. If you’re going to take crazy risks, you’d better be ready to accept the consequences. We’re patriots fighting tyranny here, people. If you wanna make an omelette, you’re gonna have to break some eggs.

No, the reason I don’t own guns is that I am so over it. When I was little, all of my toys were guns. Very realistic looking firearms for every occasion.  When I was, like, 7, my mom asked my dad, “What should we get Bobby for his birthday?” It was a rhetorical question. I owned a Fanner 50 cap gun that shot actual projectiles. I had the Dick Tracy snub-nosed .38 that did the same thing. I had the Man from Uncle spy kit with the semi-automatic pistol plus silencer. And I had an air rifle that shot rocks and dirt at other children. So that year they did not get me a gun.

They got me a cannon. A spring-loaded Johnny Reb cannon. What did it shoot? CANNON BALLS. Fuck you, Kyle Rittenhouse. I had a fucking cannon. Now, that’s obviously unheard of nowadays. We don’t give little kids toy guns. We give them real guns. Never mind that ass-wipe Rittenhouse. You read about the 6-year-old who busted a cap in his 1^st grade teacher? “You want my inside voice, Miss Kimberly? Here’s my inside voice, bitch.” Then the next week another 6-year-old shows up to school strapped. It’s unbelievable.

In the year 2023, you can just saunter into a grade school with a Glock. But try penetrating the perimeter with a peanut butter sandwich. They will find you. They will beat you. And they will drag your ass away.

But toys, back in the day. There was no government agency to protect kids. There was no Child Safety Commission. The biggest categories were guns, games and dolls. Oh, and choke hazards. Nothing funner for a little toddler than a blocked trachea. In the 60s, Barbie shoes killed more children than malaria.

I don’t even know how we survived. Do you think the air rifle was the most dangerous toy in our house? Not even close. Once we got a life-size snow man. It came with these Styrofoam snow balls, and the games was to throw the balls at the snowman ’til they stuck. How did they stick? Mind you, this was at least decade before Velcro. No, they stuck because the snowman WAS COVERED WITH 1000 SHARP PLASTIC SPIKES. Just try to picture the carnage. In that year — I think it was 1961 — 60% of American children died on Christmas morning. The question is not whether I’m old. It’s how did I even get here?

Now maybe you’re thinking, “Come on, Bob, maybe you have four grandchildren and literally seven diseases, but you’re not that old.” It’s a nice sentiment, mostly from people who have never encountered my prostate. My doctor has, of course. [snapping rubber glove] He actually flinched and stepped backwards. I said, “What is it?” He said, “I don’t know. It feels like Mr. Potato Head.” Funny man. Funny, funny man. And, yeah, that’s another toy from my youth. Now they’re plastic. In my day, the main part was a potato. A fucking POTATO. That was the toy. It’s like making jewelry out of asparagus.

Not that old? Really?

But the truth is, I low-key work to fit in with younger culture. It’s been a minute since I was born, but we’re chopping it up, right? The other day I rocked a crop top. Unfortunately, the crop was watermelons.

And I’m totally down with the gender spectrum. Sometimes I wake up and simply don’t remember what sex I am.

I do my best to represent. Last week, I participated in my first Iron Man … Yes. Thank you. It consisted of plugging in the iron … I didn’t finish. But, goddammit, I gave it my all.

Just had a colonoscopy. It went OK. They found one polyp and four Dollar Stores.

The doctor said I should walk a mile every day. As if. Walking … that’s so… pedestrian.

The question that made me nervous was drug use. I was honest. I told him I experimented with illegal drugs 2 or 3 … thousand times in the 70s.

It’s taken a long time, but I finally take more drugs now than I did in college. I take Enbrel for arthritis, Praluent for cholesterol, Pantoprazole for reflux disease. I should probably take Viagra, too, but I can’t stand all the hugging afterwards.

You know what sucks, though? I’m allergic to Benadryl. It’s bad. Once I just brushed past someone on Benadryl and my throat started to close. They rushed me to the hospital and pumped me full of shrimp scampi.

Meanwhile, everything hurts. Not just my back, which on x-rays looks like a Jenga tower. It’s also my front. Ohhhhh, my aching front.

People say to me, “Nonsense! You’re as old as you feel.” Uh-huh. I feel like Stephen Hawking — who, by the way, is DEAD.

They say, “Aw, you’re just having a mid-life crisis.” Well, that’s also not true. Mid-life? Dude, we’re talking home stretch. I used to get spam calls for extended car warranties. Now it’s hospice. “Hi, this is Nancy from Green Room Palliative Services. Our special offer expires June 1. Our records indicate you probably will, too.”

What we’re talking about here is end-life crisis. Which is at least as pathetic.  I confess it sometimes makes me act like a fool. Like, lying to my wife. I’ll tell her I’m working late, but then I fly to Florida.

Why? Because it’s the one place where I can feel young. It’s like eco-tourism. You can see Buick Electras in their natural habitat. In every city park, there is a statue of Matlock. In Florida, people are so old shuffleboard is an adventure sport. They’re so old they watch the CBS Evening News.

I was checking in to my hotel and saw an old man struggling with a suitcase. He was about 105, 106. I said, “Sir, let me help you with that.” He said, “I’m the bellman.”

The little door hanger in the room? One side said: “Do Not Disturb.” The other side said, “Do Not Resuscitate.”

I don’t go swimming or anything. My body … ughhh. When I walk down the beach, women mentally dress me. But I still feel so youthful there. Sometimes I rent a car, park outside the dialysis clinic and just, you know, people watch.

Getting old isn’t all bad. I’m knitting an afghan out of my ear hair. I get the senior discount at Massage Envy. But the main thing is the knowledge and wisdom that come with age. For instance, I’m now an expert in deductibles.

But still, so many mysteries. What preceded the universe? Is there intelligent life somewhere light years away? And I guess the biggest puzzle of all: the pricing of a room-service orange juice. I was in a Hyatt last month and I called down for breakfast. Asked for an English muffin, half pot of coffee and some OJ. They said, “Thank you, Mr. Garfield. We’ll have it to you in two hours.” I’m, like, TWO HOURS???” They said, “Takes a while for the credit check.”

*****

You probably want to know a little bit about me. I came from a very small town. We had a grain escalator.

I’m monoatheistic. I believe in one God, who does not exist. There can’t be a just and merciful God. Or there would be no war. There would be no Ebola. There would be no speed cameras. There would be no Papa John’s.

By the way, atheist, but Jewish. Believe it or not, even though I’m a comic, I’m Jewish. Like Moses and George Santos-ish. I know, I know, you’re thinking, “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be out baking matzoh with Christian babies’ blood and controlling the media?” That is such bullshit. Like about 90% of American Jews, I am not especially observant. Maybe a brief nod to tradition on Passover, Hanukkah and the High Holidays. So we control the media, what, like two weeks a year?

The baby blood is true, though.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m no bigot. I’m actually a bit envious of those gentile freaks. I mean, just the names. I spent my career in journalism, and I was always so jealous of this NBC guy Stone Phillips. Stone Phillips. How Andover-Yale whisky-highball-Martha’s-Vineyard-frigid-blond-on-horseback is that shit?

God, I’d love to have a name like that. Stone Phillips. Anderson Cooper. Shepherd Smith. Those aren’t names. They’re fucking law firms. And so evocative. Close your eyes and you practically smell their foreskins.

Jews can’t have last names for first names. I’m Teitelbaum Ginsberg, and here are the top stories. “Schmuckler Steinberg! Your dinner’s ready. KORNBLITT, get in here! WEINER, WEINSTEIN, WEINROT. Right this minute!”

Oh Stone, Stone, Stone. I want your child’s blood in my matzoh.

More about me. Well, even at my advanced age, I still can’t figure out women. You come downstairs after a hard day of online gambling, and all you want to do is grab a beer and chill. But the wife immediately — guys you know what’s coming — she says: “Concave is to convex as implosion is to what?” Am I right? Women: All they want to talk about is relationships.

I’m a bit of an entrepreneur. Once, back in the day, I had an idea for a website called “Third Life.” It was gonna be for people so pathetic they couldn’t even make friends on Second Life. But I Googled “Third Life” and  found out someone already has dibs on that, so if I ever go through with it, I’ll need a different name for a place where total losers gather. I think I’ll just call it Applebee’s.

This one is embarrassing. I’m retired now, but when I worked I sometimes used to complain about my job — which (this was weird) how it worked was, when I was 22 I got hired for this gig, and was welcome to stay for as long as I wanted, with salary and pension and benefits and three-weeks vacation and health insurance — unless I wanted a higher-paying job in the same industry for more money, which I did, and they reimbursed me for my moving expenses. But you young people are too lazy and privileged to accept a deal like that. Take off your Dunkin smock and pick yourself up by the bootstraps, for God’s sake. Nobody owes you a living.

Hey, do this. I want everybody to look directly to the person on their left, and then, directly to the person on your right. Yeah, left, then right. Good. Yep, all three of you are fucked. You would probably be consigned to a career at the mall — but that’s abandoned, isn’t it? Like ghost towns and personal privacy. So instead of daydreaming about Only Fans and a W2 job  why don’t you put down your vape pens and fix the climate and the economy. And democracy. Jesus Christ. Quit whining and get busy.

Anyway, I used to complain a lot about my journalism job, which required brutally calling strangers on the phone and writing down what they said. Brutal … I thought. Then, ladies and gentlemen, I met … as there-is-no-God as my witness — a cow inseminator. That is a bad job. Maybe not as bad as their colleagues, the bull jerker-offers, but a bad job. They literally take a turkey baster and inject bull semen into the cow’s vagina. I mean, that’s just gross. Plus, all the foreplay. Tenderly kissing the cow’s vulva. Moooooooooooo.

What else? All right, this kind of shames me, too, but I’m not a careful shopper. I came home the other day with grade B eggs. My daughter sent me to the drug store for a box of Always pads. That is so wrong. Shouldn’t they be called “Periodically”? I can’t even keep track of brands. I went into a CVS and asked for a gallon of Oxy. They didn’t carry OxiClean but they did helpfully call the police. By the way, you wanna go viral on the internet. Walk into a Starbucks. Order a double shot decaf soy latte and give ’em the name “Karen.” When it comes out, say you ordered a Frappuccino and scream for the manager and tell her you wish snakes were coming out her ass. It’ll be on TikTok and the kids will love it.

So I try my best, but I’d like to do more to be contemporary and, you know, groove with the Pepsi Generation. I actually thought about going to one of those escape rooms. But, holy shit, like $200 for the hour to be trapped eternally in a situation that creates high anxiety? Why pay for that? I’m already married.

Kidding. Kidding. Marriage joke! That also used to be a thing back in the day, like corporal punishment and bowling. But, seriously … escape rooms? Why pay for that? There are places of business that entrap you in an overwhelming, nearly inescapable space with no upfront cost whatsoever. Have you never been in a Bed, Bath & Beyond?

Jesus, I went in one the other day. I didn’t need anything for my bedroom or bathroom, but I was running low on, you know, “beyond.”

Beyond what? Are we talking about the kitchen, the closets? The cosmos? “Hi there, could you help me? I found the comforter and toothbrush holder, but what aisle for the origins of the universe?”

Ha. I’m kidding you again! There are no employees in a retail store. Not even at check out. Same day I went into the supermarket for bananas. Self-checkout, of course, and I couldn’t figure out to weigh them. So I hit the “for assistance” button. A digital voice came up and said, “If this is an actual emergency, dial 911. Otherwise, why don’t you just go fuck yourself?”

Anyway, Bed, Bath & Beyond. The second thing you do in that store is encounter a large selection of goods, shelved floor to ceiling. The first thing you do is surrender free will. You cannot just browse a Bed, Bath & Beyond. They put you on some sort of labyrinthine prescribed course, like the maze on a Denny’s placemat. (You know, the ones they give you the free crayons for — but the crayons have almost no pigment? It’s like coloring with a box of Hanukkah candles.)

Or maybe not like a maze. More like a cattle chute into the slaughterhouse. You’re being corralled to your execution, only — in fairness — with a very nice selection of shower curtains. I mean, Ikea does the same thing, but at least when you get through the checkout you buy a $1 hotdog and jars of herring or some shit. After you check out at a Bed, Bath & Beyond, all you get is the parking lot. Or used to. The chain’s heading for bankruptcy and the stores are closing left and right.

Why? Because, one thing, people don’t to go through the Bataan Death March for a queen-sized comforter. But mainly because of … what? ... Come on, what? ... YES. Amazon! I’m so old, I remember when Amazon was just a jungle. Now it’s a jungle that has all my credit-card numbers and every single one of my needs in the physical world. A friend of mine, also geriatric, asked me upon his death to go onto his computer and erase his search history. He didn’t want his wife and kids and grandkids to know about his porn preferences. Well, I said I would if he would.

Not porn sites. My Amazon account. I don’t want anyone, anyone to know what ointments I use. I have ointments for things you simply do not want to think about. I mean, that you literally cannot conceptualize. Nobody should ever be confronted with this information.

Or the hats. So many hats.

You’ve been a wonderful audience. And big, big thanks to Netflix for this opportunity, even though your top-10 list sucks. Thank you one and all. And goodnight.