Blog #320                                April 27, 2023

 

You have all heard tales of the new wonders of A.I. (Artificial Intelligence).  A.I. can imitate anyone’s voice perfectly and can make all-but-real videos showing anyone at all saying anything at all.  It can, for instance, concoct a video of you confessing to hiding Jimmy Hoffa’s body in the trunk of Joe Biden’s Corvette and the video will be indistinguishable from reality.  If Artificial Intelligence can imitate your voice and your appearance, then it can build a robot that looks and sounds exactly like you.  Pretty soon that robot will learn how to think like you and laugh like you and gossip like you and write limericks like you and make love like you.  And then the robot will be you and there won’t be any need for you whatsoever and you can kiss your ass goodbye.  So enjoy yourself now, because the future will have no use for you.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Lord, what fools these mortals be! (A Midsummer Night’s Dream).  Robots and A.I. will never replace cats.  Anybody who tried to make a machine that could purr and snuggle better than me would be guilty of A.S. – Artificial Stupidity.  Purr.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and getting ready for May Day.  May Day, historically a European holiday celebrating the beginning of summer, has now become International Workers’ Day which commemorates the struggles and gains made by workers and the labor movement.  Every May Day, the Communists march and the labor unions march and people celebrating Springtime march and women march and high-school students march and teachers march and there are so many marches that it should have been called March Day and held in March.  But it’s not.

 

I’ll tell you who else is marching.  Apparently, people from California and New York are marching out of those states to other states where it is cheaper to live.  They’re not actually marching; they’re driving and most of them are using a new brand of car called a Drove.  At least that’s what the news article said: People are leaving California and New York in Droves.  Must be some kind of new electric car.

 

Last Saturday, my grandson Austin was Bar Mitzvah’d.  Of course they don’t call it Bar or Bat Mitzvah anymore.  They call it B-Mitzvah.  Bar means son in Hebrew, bat means daughter, but the temple has decided to be gender-nonspecific and chosen to use only B, which stands for bullshit.  Anyway, he was great and it was a lovely weekend.  When Austin was little and wanted a story, he would sit on my lap and say, “Poppy, say a onceuponatime.”  So today I have a onceuponatime for you.  A guest at the Bar Mitzvah reminded me of something that happened when I was a Junior at Washington University – 1966 it was.  One of the local radio stations, KSHE, had a Valentine’s Day contest to pick the best original Valentine’s Day card.  The station would pay to have the winner’s girlfriend flown in for a weekend.  A small group of my fraternity brothers decided we should pool our various talents and submit an entry, just for fun.  We had a guy who was good at art and another who was good at poetry and so on, but none of us had an out-of-town girlfriend.  One brother remembered he had met a girl in Florida on Spring Break the year before and remembered her name, so we submitted the card on behalf of him.  We won!  Amazing!  Jay, the guy, somehow got in touch with Bonnie, the girl, and she agreed to accept the free airplane ticket and fly to St. Louis to be with a guy she barely knew.  I can’t image how her mother allowed her to do it, but we were innocent back then.  The era of Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n Roll hadn’t fully matured by then.  Hell, we were barely out of the Holding Hands, Milk Shakes and Patti Page era.

 

Bonnie flew into town and stayed at the house of my girlfriend, the reigning Sweetheart of Sigma Alpha Mu and the future Mrs. M. Fox, our ubiquitous Carol.  And we all had a very nice weekend.  End of story?  No.  Jay and Bonnie have been married for over 50 years and live in upstate New York.  True story.

 

I had a physical last week, just a normal yearly visit and a blood test.  Among the results was an increased level of something or other that encouraged Dr. Doctor to recommend a nuclear scan.  Ok, so I went.  A nice young man began by injecting me with a radioactive substance.  That’s what “nuclear” means.  I asked if it was iodine, and he said no, it was technetium.  I knew, of course, that technetium was element #43 on the Periodic Table with an isotope of atomic weight 99 which is radioactive.  I learned all that from Mr. Hale in high school chemistry class.  Hey, I’m not ashamed of being a nerd. After the injection, we waited a few minutes for the nuclear cocktail to find its way and then we began.  He asked me if I was claustrophobic.  I said no.  I was wrong.  I lay on my back on a table and he put straps over me so I could not move my arms.  I asked what happens if I get an itch.  He said scratch it now.  Uh-oh!  Then they inserted me into a tube like – well, create your own inappropriate metaphor.  The results were negative, so the doctor ordered more tests and scans and bloodwork, all of which showed absolutely nothing wrong with me.  But he appears to be on a quixotic quest and determined to find something – anything – wrong with me.  He’ll only stop when I’ve either died or run out of money.

 

We’ve x-rayed his heart and his head

Let’s try a few bone tests instead

We’re doing our best

To employ every test

Until he is broke or he’s dead.

 

The Weekly Word is quixotic, which describes an endeavor that is idealistic, unrealistic and impractical – the impossible dream of Don Quixote.

 

I’d better go now; I’m going to buy a Drove, but be sure to come back next week.  If you do, I’ll say a onceuponatime, and make you giggle.  Stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com