Some people will misinterpret this column as me just being mean or grumpy. I’d like to think that I’m a good, kind, dependable guy, the sort of person who would pick up your mail while you were out of town, or maybe help you clean out your garage, so please don't take this the wrong way. I say this acknowledging your personhood, your unique gifts and family history, your language, your culture, your personal struggles, your health concerns, and your valued place in the community. But, please…. Just Shuddup!
Meet Doug. During a loquacious lunch hour, Doug will hold forth on air pollution, global warming, corporate greed, Middle Eastern history, Freudian psychology, the Supreme Court, world hunger, human-trafficking, and homelessness. He’s also an expert on Dodgers baseball, Lakers basketball, UCLA football, the Ducks and Kings, the Tour de France, and the Iditarod. Dave is also fond of pot, heavy metal, and Aleister Crowley. He’s 19, works in the mail room, and has a spiderweb tattoo on his neck.
Have you met Tina? She’s a middle-aged local activist who wears a Che Guevara t-shirt and hands out leaflets reminding me to save the whales, polar bears, giant pandas, honey bees, butterflies, moss spiders, green sea turtles, black-footed ferrets, Bornean orangutans, African wild dogs, and the finless porpoises of Yangtze.
Time for some hard truth:
Doug, no one cares about your brilliant idea to parachute candy bars to the children of Gaza, or your deep ops proposal to distract Russian forces with phone porn, or how — I dunno!— the Lakers can return to relevance with a backcourt of transgendered Ukrainians. And no one care about Aleister Crowley or Metallica or the Iditarod.
You’re nineteen, Doug. You watch Jeopardy and smoke pot.
You know what we do while you and Ken Jennings are puffing cannabis clouds in the form of a question?—
We’re slapping paint on the railings; we’re mowing the lawn; we’re taking the kids to hockey practice.
At 4 AM, Doug. 4 AM.
So, on behalf of working people everywhere, Doug, grow up and… Just Shuddup!!
Oh, and good luck with that neck tattoo.
Tina, you’re not a marine biologist or any kind of biologist. You’re an unemployed 45-year-old cat lady who flunked biology; the neighbor’s 5-year-old beat you in chess, and I pretty sure that you have fleas. Before saving the Cambodian white mountain Siamese crocodiles, you might want to think about getting a job and paying your bills.
So… Just Shuddup!!
Sure, I'm betting that back in the day, President John Kennedy received a ton of unsolicited mail on how to win the Vietnam War. But at least the mail was properly addressed to someone in charge.
Dear Mr. President,
As Deputy-Vice-Chair (pro-tem) of the Dolly Parton Fan Club of Western Ohio, I feel qualified to inform you that the Vietnam War is going poorly. I suggest we need a fresh approach. We can begin with re-branding. No one wants to fight in Vietnam. Why not rename the country “Dolly-Nam”?
Signed,
Ima B. Izibodi, Deputy-Vice-Chair (pro-tem),
Dolly Parton Fan Club,
Western Ohio Chapter.
P.S. I understand that the Donny and Marie Fan Club will be writing to you as well. Don’t listen to those people. They are crazy.
Hey, busy-bodies everywhere, please… Just Shuddup!
While I was typing this, my wife’s phone rang. She lit up like a child presented with a twisty party balloon.
If I am irritated, I have to admit glumly that I am also a bit jealous. Where’s my twisty balloon?!
(By the way, it was just a robo-call.)
I suspect that our recent infatuation with chatter is a post-9/11 fallout. Our civil liberties have been severely curtailed. Would you really be shocked to learn that the government was tapping your phone, data-mining your emails, surveilling your driving patterns, tracking your online activities, and analyzing your financial and medical records? What with all the software trackers, spy satellites, and road cameras, I’d be completely shocked, and maybe even disappointed, if the government wasn’t spying on me.
It’s not merely that hiding stuff is now nigh impossible, it’s also that even an attempt to hide stuff is downright suspicious. Ipso facto, yakking about everything is a sign that you are an honest American, someone with nothing to hide.
But it also makes you impossibly irritating:
SCENE: Taliban torture chamber in Afghanistan. Tied to a chair, an honest American.
TALIBAN: Now, American, tell us about the secret plans!
HONEST AMERICAN: Secret who’s got a secret not me I believe that when you bottle things up they fester that’s what my therapist says we’ve been talking for years now and it's so liberating just yesterday we were talking about Johnny Muller not Johnny Miller the Olympic skier he was a childhood friend who wore corrective shoes Muller not Miller who was clearly a born athlete some people are like that I think he had weak ankles Muller not Miller maybe I should just call him Jimmy that’s what I called him sometimes John but mostly Jimmy so he invited me to his house on his seventh birthday but when I got there he had no games no hats not even a cake I think he was Mormon or something and I was upset I really wanted cake you see and he didn't even have cookies so I just left really super-mean when I think about the damage I might have done to Johnny it's no wonder he ended up in jail it's all my fault and if I am being honest I was only there for the cake Johnny and I were never going to be friends for one he didn’t read comic books now I ask you what does it say about a seven-year-old who doesn’t read comic books did I ever tell you about my kitten her name was Fluffy she was the cutest thing she'd hide in my hair when the doorbell rang so Fluffy was—
TALIBAN: Never mind the cat. THE PLANS. TELL US ABOUT THE PLANS.
HONEST AMERICAN: Dinner plans how kind I was hoping we could get into Spago or maybe Kim’s Pagoda their spring rolls in honey are such a treat though it makes me poop and it really smells so embarrassing but I’ve always had a sensitive colon…
Three hours of interrogation pass; we now return to the grim drama:
TALIBAN: SHUT UP. I CAN’T TAKE IT! JUST SHUT UP!
HONEST AMERICAN: Is it the language I know poop is a bad word how about we call it “pooh” like the bear I loved those books when I was a kid they still hold up have you seen the cartoons so much fun though that bear is obviously pre-diabetic you’d think that as a role model he’d be in better shape but...
TALIBAN: Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP! I will kill you, if you’d don’t shut up. You will suffer. I promise you that!
HONEST AMERICAN: Oh I’ve suffered suffered fearfully like the time I lost my credit card in New Orleans that’s French you know though they should call it Nuvelle Orleans or even better Orleans Nuvelle and…
TALIBAN: I can’t take it! Please, please stop! Please… Just Shuddup!
True story: I was sitting in a Starbucks, doing some state-mandated training for my employer. The training is a mere formality; you can complete the questionnaires without reviewing the accompanying educational materials in great depth. If you get a question wrong, you get a do-over. I’d rather be walking on the beach, but I do the training thoughtfully, responsibly, and conscientiously.
After a few hours of reading and viewing videos on this stuff, I left my table and stood in line for an iced coffee. I thought this was an efficient moment to grab said coffee, as there was only one person in front of me. Next thing ya know, the barista and this customer began to talk and talk and talk about music, movies, and then ideal baby names, like Tom. Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Tom Brady, Tom Petty, Tom Jones, Tom Selleck, Tom Holland, Tom Arnold.
I mean, seriously, who would name their kid after Tom Arnold?
Meanwhile, I’m being ignored.
But do I slump and sigh, do I wear the weight of cosmic injustice on my shoulders; do I go around complaining to everyone and his sister that I am karmically cursed because I have to wait an extra 35 seconds to order a Nondairy Vanilla Sweet Cream Cold Brew— and then call my BFF to rehash tearfully this “You’ll-never-believe-what-just-happened-to-me” moment?
No, I don’t.
But you do, and you need to Just Shuddup!
Have you done this?
You’re at a restaurant, a bar, a movie theater, a funeral, and your phone sounds off. Everyone looks at you. You shrug and say, “Sorry, I have to take this.”
Maybe I don’t recognize you. Maybe you’re the President of the United States dealing with incoming Russian missiles. Now, that’s a phone call that you have to take.
Maybe it’s casual Friday for brain surgeons and a hostage negotiators, but, so far as I understand the world, anyone wearing a Black Sabbath t-shirt during working hours isn’t urgently required anywhere— ever.
But chances are, you’re just NOT that important, and neither is your phone call.
Oh, what’s that you say? You’re just so damn lonely that you’re thrilled if anyone calls.
Oh, well, why didn’t you say so?! Let’s fix that right now. Here’s a public announcement:
HOORAY! SOMEONE CALLED YOU! YOU MATTER!
Actually, let me amend that: You matter to someone…. just not me.
So, why do I have to suffer through your pointless chitchatterings about your recent drunken carousal, your son’s sorry-ass football team, your daughter’s colonoscopy and credit score, your rising insurance rates, who's getting the bondage equipment in the divorce settlement, your bleeding gums, your Uncle Arty’s bee sting, and why you need another pair of yoga pants?
And at least have the courtesy to take the caller off speaker!
Or, better yet, maybe you could do us all a favor and… Just Shuddup!
Oh, you want me to get all-political?
OK.
Trump.
Here’s a guy who claims that “they”—the press, the deep state, the Courts, the Communists, the Fascists, the feminists, the Democrats— hate America, and his proof is that “they” are trying to shut him up.
There isn’t much to add here.
Over the last 10 years, we’ve grown accustomed to his ceaseless carking, his blather and buffoonery.
As Jimmy Kimmel said, “For a normal person, it would have taken a lifetime to say that many stupid things in public. Trump did it in two months.”
But it’s not merely that Trump is viciously and vaingloriously ignorant on virtually every subject: economics, art, literature, religion, science, the Constitution, hair transplants….
If it were merely a matter of ignorance, we might not much care.
Ignorance, after all, is not synonymous with evil.
And besides, if we wanna learn something about something, we’ve got Alexa.
But Trump isn’t Just-Shuddup ignorant.
He’s evil.
How do I know?
Because, to my lasting shame, almost every evil thing Trump has said, I have, in my lowest, vilest, nastiest moments, thought— and then I smacked myself in the head and made a donation to the ACLU.
But Pestilential Trump has no filter, no moral corrective. He’s a sock puppet for the silenced. As he said during his acceptance speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention: “These are people who work hard but no longer have a voice. I am your voice.”
In that same campaign, he also promised to "drain the swamp.”
And he delivered.
He drained the swamp by spewing America’s unsayable sewage.
As for Kamala Harris: I was kind of “meh” about her; like most vice presidents, she seemed kinda dull, clerical, a consolation candidate, a ribbon cutter for that new cement factory on the outskirts of town, or, maybe to really spice things up, she gives a speech about rural broadband access, or how America’s patriotic cows produce more milk than their Chinese counterparts. In the evening, she writes her memoirs, highlighting her greatest vice-presidential achievements:
Chapter 1: The Junk Fee Prevention Act.
In sum, she reminds me of Al Gore, only without his robotic charm.
(Al Gore=A.I. Gore…. hmmmm.)
But then she won me over when she told those noisy protestors to Just Shuddup!
I am just spitballing here, but maybe our public speech is so noisy because we have silenced discussion in so many other public forums? We used to call Facebook and Twitter “social networks.” We were told that these were online spaces to meet our friends or make new ones. Nowadays, things look very different: Twitter-X is overrun with bots, and YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook are clogged with cheap guitar lessons, nutritional supplements, high-skirted “Influencers,” and the glory that is David Goggins (#they don't know me son). While any user on these platforms can be banned for “offensive” and “hurtful” language, the terms of service are so broad that they are both meaningless and menacing. The only expressions that guarantee continued access are “thumbs-up,” “thumbs-down,” and an array of innocuous emojis. So, no wonder that, when we get a chance to speak freely, we sound off like Pavarotti at La Scala.
But maybe we’d be better neighbors if we would… Just Shuddup!
My father-in-law is a great guy. Correction: Was a great guy. He died a few years ago. I really miss him. He was the best of the best, except…. he compulsively repeated the same anecdotes. Even if I said, “Yes, I know, you have said this before,” even if I interrupted and completed the anecdote for him, I still had to suffer through the entire tale.
FATHER-IN-LAW: Well, you go down these escalators in Montreal, and there’s a whole city there, you should see it. They call it the….
ME: Underground City. Ya, Dave, I have seen it. I was with you.
FATHER-IN-LAW: And the subways. I couldn't believe how clean they were.
ME: Or how fast…
FATHER-IN-LAW: Or how fast!
ME: But everyone speaks French.
FATHER-IN-LAW: The one thing I didn’t like was that everyone spoke French. It was like being in a different country.
It seems pointless to say, for the umpteenth time, that Canada is a different country.
FATHER-IN-LAW: And the money! It’s so different.
ME: I know, Dave. I was there with you.
FATHER-IN-LAW: Did I ever tell you about cheesy fries?
ME: Yes, Dave. Poutine. We ate them together.
FATHER-IN-LAW: Well, they put cheese and gravy on their fries, and man, it’s good. You’d think you died and gone to heaven.
I would never have told Dave to Just Shuddup and, now that he’s gone, I wish he could tell me about Montreal just one more time. So he repeated the story about the time we went to Montreal, so what? He had a great time, and we we’re together.
In retrospect, I should have Just Shuddup.
Don’t Bother Reading is brought to you by No One Important, INC, stock symbol NOINC. It is headquartered in the state of Stupefaction and donates liberally to charities containing the phrase “flammable pumpkin pie.”
The Rest is Silence.
didn’t bother to read this but i’m sure it’s good
Ok, this is hilarious, and I can relate. And you’re right re Trump—he should shut up. But….there’s only one problem: for the sake of the Jews, for the sake of America, and for the sake of Israel…we have to vote for him. Yup. I came out of the closet.
If anyone starts abusing me re this comment, I will delete it.