It's Almost 4000.... Also Titled: "A Look Back."

Previous entries in the "It's Almost..." series:

First one (circa 2018): https://www.writingsonsubjects.com/2018/10/it-almost-2000_98.html

Second one: (circa 2021): https://www.writingsonsubjects.com/2021/05/its-almost-3000-also-titled-pandemic-in.html




My goodness, friends. My goodness does time fly. Oh goodness, does it ever. It's Almost 4000!? Wow.

If you didn't know, I switched to Count Von Count counting on Twitter Standard Time in 2018... which was...

....FIVE YEARS AGO!?

Man, that pandemic really wonked-up the understanding of the passage of time for yours truly, friends, it truly did. Oh, it truly did.

I'm going to re-read my "Almost 2000..." and "Almost 3000..." articles now as a sort-of personal time-capsuled refresher course on my life.

I remember feeling "Old" in 2018... like my body was not able to do the same physical labor and physical exercise to the same level it used to be able to. This series, is of course, basically on the subject of "Time" and my opinions of it that I hope others can relate to. It would have been boring and too formulaic to simply call this series something like "Time: What I think about it"... the Count Von Count part gives it a fun angle that I like... Time, is of course, a very sad topic in many ways as we all know it is a limited resource for us all. Plus, and more importantly, the Count's count feels like an Event to me now. When the Count hits another millennium on Twitter... to see it switch from 999 to 1,000 or 1,999 to 2,000... brings this fresh feeling for me. It's like the start of a New Era! It's very exciting for me, honestly.

Re-reading these "Time" themed articles is like a time-caspsule for me. I remember how I felt when I wrote these.

I saw on Twitter, The Residents, wished the late Hardy Fox a happy birthday, wherever his spirit is, the other day or so...

...that brings back memories of the 2018 article for me.

In 2018 around that time... I was physically tired... I was tired from digging this hole... because we had tree roots going into our pipes... and we had to dig this huge trench in my front yard to get to the pipe that was full of tree roots. I was so tired from digging... then I went inside and read that Hardy Fox "died"... it was so strange though... like he sort of announced his own death. His website put up an epitaph and released his life story auto-biography called "This" on it. I remember reading this story he wrote, that day, called "The  Stone" in my bed while my body was so utterly sore. I was lying motionless from pain and reading this strange story he wrote... feeling a unique feeling... and because of how odd his "death" was... no news sites or anything were confirming it... and then you realize... this guy was not "famous"... that's why there was no confirmation... it's like no one knew who he was... unless you were a big Residents fan.

To read The  Stone, whilst I was immobilized by physical pain and the natural course of human aging... and wondering if this guy who wrote it even truly was even actually dead... was so odd. Hardy Fox was truly a unique guy.

Part of me thinks he "died" publicly...like his public persona (or lack thereof) a few weeks before he really did die... just to see what people said about him.

The 2018 "It's Almost..." ends on a 'Trumpet of Hope' sort of ending to the first article in this series that I wrote... which if you read the next article I explain what is meant by that sort of an ending.

The second article, in 2021, was in the heart of the pandemic... and I don't know how your region dealt with it but major cities in Canada were on hard lock downs. At 8pm you could not be outside your home without a valid reason... and it went on a long time. When I wrote the 2021 one... it was a time of deep mental boredom and of fear for the future.

The 'Trumpet of Hope' ending is a term coined from "Rest Aria" by the Residents where the song ends on this hopeful but soft trumpet that sort of rises out of the cacophony of bings, doots, and dissonance... which is what I hoped emerging from the pandemic would eventually feel like.

The article then goes on to talk about the Geddython's Geddy Tweet's righteous march to 2112 and some other stuff.

Speaking of The Count n' Muppets and the Geddython... coming up on April 16th, 2023... is the One Hundred Muppet Challenge: Phil Braun vs. Nick Lutsko... it's an event of quite significant magnitude on the world stage. Two men... one hundred Muppets must be named...only one can win. A battle of wits for the ages.

Speaking of events of significant magnitude on a global scale... did you guys watch that World Baseball Classic? Man, I love that WBC, I really do. It's so interesting.

I wrote about it a long time ago once,

(This one: https://www.writingsonsubjects.com/2017/03/world-baseball-classic_6.html)

The 2023 World Baseball Classic was AMAZING. It boiled down to Society's two most interesting and cool nations in the world today, The USA and Japan, battling it out for Baseball glory. It ended with Shohei Ohtani striking out Mike Trout... everyone in the Baseball World was on the edge of their seats. It was a great moment in history. Not only in the history of Baseball but the History of the World itself. It was awesome and it was so cool.

I think baseball journalist, statistician, and avid Twitter user Sarah Langs sums it up with the statement...

"Baseball is the Best!" - Langs, S.

Baseball really is the best. I miss those ol' Montreal Expos still, friends. I really do. I still miss that beautiful baseball team. It's spring now and that's usually when you'd start hearing about spring training and baseball season getting under way... you know... feeling the spring in your glands and everything. The vast snow of the winter is gradually melting away... Baseball and Spring are still quite paired together in the wistfulness of my human memories, friends, they are. The sounds of bats hitting balls, the smells of hot dogs and of fresh grass, the numbers in the boxscores... what a great game. What a terrific and great game!

I'll tell you something... that Shohei Ohtani is a SUPER STAR. He's a global phenomenon! He's a dynamic dynamo! He's a bigger Shohei than even Shohei Baba was... and Shohei Baba was close to seven feet tall! Ohtani is a legit baseball super star like the world has never seen! It's a great time to be alive!

It is a great time to be alive! What does the future hold for us in the fantastic Baseball World? Surely good things! Most assuredly good tidings and things! Oh yes!

Friends...

The Baseball world has a full and bright future ahead of itself. The Muppet world too. I'm not sure who will win the One Hundred Muppet Challenge and will not offer any prognostications on the event.

Part of me thinks Phil Braun is out of his league against a wise Muppet knowledge power-house like Nick Lutsko... he's in deep n' way over-his-head... it's almost in a Golf terminology sense... to explain it... it's like a guy who hits from the amateur white tees is going against a true Pro who hits, or rather names Muppets not hits, from the blue tees.

....but then another part of me second-guesses that assessment of their Muppet Naming talent/skills. These guys are from the Southern United States, right? They've got different tactics and stratagems in that part of the continent. What if this guy's just playin' possum? What if Phil Braun is some sort of Muppet connoisseur and is just pretending in public life to know very little about the Muppets in order to catch Nick Lutsko on the bad foot goin' into the One Hundred Muppet Challenge?

Nick Lutsko might be so confident, like an agile hare... rushing around pretending he's our society's leading Muppet-naming expert...

Yet...

...who's to say a wise old tortoise won't just show up to The Hundred Muppet Challenge and calmly start listing off tens, dozens, many, if not hundreds of Muppets?

Only time will tell... Only time will tell....


What else? You guys playing with that ChatGPT or that Dall-E? Man, I remember when graphing calculators came out, friends. All the kids at school were going nuts for an over-sized pocket calculator that could draw algebra graphs on it. Me? I didn't even want one. I wanted to draw pictures of X-squared on graph paper... on my own... with my own two human hands that my parents gave me when I was born onto this world!

Same goes for auto-writers and auto-drawers. Baby, I don't want 'em and I don't need 'em! I don't need a darned robot to type for me. I love the sound these keys make as I punch up these words! I still smell the typewriter ink that these noises have married to them in my wistful human memories. The keyboard is a beautiful machine! It's a beautiful machine! I don't need some gimmick computer to punch these keys for me! Because, baby...I can do it on my own.

You can emulate the brain of a humor writer... but... you can never emulate their soul!

And in the words of Mojo Nixon...

"...You can Never Kill the Spirit of Rock and ROLL" -Nixon, M.


Oh yes, my friends...

You can make a computer try to pretend its a humorous writer... you can... but in one million years you could never make a computer that can replicate a humorous writer's soul... and let me say it again, friends... you CAN NEVER KILL THE SPIRIT OF ROCK AND ROLL!

I bet 4000 Count Von Count units from today, in the moment called 8000.... when were are Over 8000 in our world... people will be wondering in that weird futuristic landscape what it was like for humans to type words on computers. Keyboards will no longer exist by then... kids'll be asking their grandads and grandmams what typing words on a keyboard was like... and they won't remember. They won't remember what is was like to type out the word... R, E, M, E, M, B, E, R... they simply won't...

...and that'll be a sad day in our history, gang! Oh will it ever be! The march of mankind, as Jean Shepherd would call it, the ever-on-going march of humanity and humanhood kind... that day will be marked as a sad day, friends... when no one will remember what it felt like to type words on a keyboard.

If you're reading this many many many moments from today let me tell you what writing on a keyboard felt like...

...I felt really really good!