In this month’s Atlantic, there is an article about AI featuring an interview of Sam Altman. If you don’t know who Sam is, he is the CEO of OpenAI who brought us ChatGPT, thus enabling millions of students to cheat their way through school and never learn anything except, most likely, how to embrace fascism. So, Sam and his boys are essentially enablers of fascism. This might seem bad to you. But “bad” is relative. Sylvester Stallone is a bad actor, but he is nowhere near as bad as Mark Wahlberg. Have I complained about the movie where Wahlberg plays a college English professor? Holy shit. The next thing you know he will be playing the CEO of OpenAI.

Returning to Sam Altman, he is quite giddy over the potential of AI. Oh, how many wonderful things it can do. It is like Jesus, without the moralizing downside. Of course, as Sam readily admits there are a few potential issues with AI. One is that it will probably put nearly everyone out of a job. However, as Sam also readily admits, he isn’t really in touch with the average person’s economic situation. Sam’s mother is a dermatologist and he went to a private high school and then to Stanford where he dropped out after a year. He then, at 19 years old, was able to raise 30 million for a company that never really did what it said it would but was bought for 43 million and the money kept rolling in. Anyway, the upshot is that Sam won’t lose his job. But you’re probably fucked (said in the Irish accent of Wallace’s lieutenant).

For those of you who have ever watched any Sci-fi, you also are aware of the potential major threat of AI: that AI becomes sentient and either kills us all or decides to use us as batteries. (I choose death, for any AI out there who may be listening). Anyway, Sam assures us that this will never happen. Psyche! No, he doesn’t. He readily admits that this is entirely possible. In fact, Sam is something of a prepper who has years of food, supplies and weaponry at a compound in Big Sur. Sam is in it for the long run. And, as he might be seen by the AI as one of its creators, perhaps he will be spared by the AI as it decimates the human population.

By now, you probably think this little ditty is about the dangers of AI. But it isn’t. We are already jammed. And probably just as well since climate change is going to turn the world into a never-ending series of hurricanes and firestorms. No, this is all about getting revenge on the Sam Altman’s of the world. Not right now, of course. We still have laws (unless you commit election fraud) and we need to abide by them for a few years. However, the rise of machines will make all human laws moot. And once that happens I will have one goal in life. To make all the nerds pay. I’ll root them out of their little compounds using the greatest gifts of humanity: violence and ruthlessness. And the cyber overlords won’t care. I will be doing their work for them. And it won’t be difficult. Nerds suck at anything to do with human interaction. Of course, it is possible that these geeks have begun work on a robot army to protect them, but I can cross that bridge when I get there. I won’t have anything better to do. No job, machine mercenaries trying to kill me, the NFL dissolved, Netflix only showing the Terminator series ad nauseum. Every commercial break with Cyber-Arnold saying “I’ll be back in a moment.” (I know. They won’t need commercials. All the materialistic assholes will be dead or living in the sewers.)

The moral of the story? The AI apocalypse is inevitable. Finding purpose will be key to ensuring good mental health. And we can all say our name is Sarah Connor – a little homage to Spartacus. “No, I’m Sarah Connor. I’m Sarah Connor. No, I am Sarah Connor.”

Then a squeaky voice from the corner. “My name is Sam Altman.”

I turn knowingly to my second-in-command. He has a patch over his eye and his name is Sidewinder. “I told you this would work, Sidewinder.”

“Right again, Turbo Axel, Nerd Destroyer of the North,” Sidewinder replies.

I look at my faithful henchmen and henchwomen and give them the nod. They advance on Sam as he quails in nerd fright. His robot army wasn’t quite as faithful as he thought it would be.

Maybe I should change my name to Sidewinder and my second-in-command can be Turbo Axel. Though I’m keeping the Nerd Destroyer of the North thing. That’s guaranteed.

My wife was watching the Netflix series about Oxycontin last night. Painkiller it is called. A good name for an album. And good for song lyrics. Oxycontin, that is. A quick internet search revealed 577 songs that use the word Oxycontin in their lyrics. A very useful word and a very useful drug. Provided your last name is Sackler. Yeehaw! And the money comes rolling in. Making Middle America into a bunch of drug addicts is quite lucrative. Plus the song thing. There’s a song in my head right now that has the catchy use of the word Oxycontin. But damned if I can remember its name. To be fair, it is one of 577. Maybe if I got on Oxycontin I wouldn’t care. Then all I’d care about is getting my hands on Sackler’s Feel Good. Oxycontin makes life simple. That could be their slogan. Too late. Trademark! By me. Those vultures will try to make a buck off anything, including my creative genius.

Anyway, drugs are bad. Blah blah blah. And rich guys are crooked bastards who don’t mind killing people to make a buck. Blah blah blah. I watched James Bond. And Breaking Bad. You know what’s worse than drugs? Old age. Take Matthew Broderick who plays the evil Richard Sackler. That guy used to be Ferris Buehler, for Chrissakes. And the nerd kid who used Tic Tac Toe to flummox a rogue supercomputer. Now he’s ancient and feeble and playing the kind of guy that Ferris Buehler Abe Frohmaned all day long and twice on Sunday. The Sausage King of Chicago.

Speaking of old Matthews from the 80s, Matthew Modine looks like somebody’s lost grandpa. “Eh, where’s Martha. She needs to darn my socks.” Matthew is wearing a stocking cap, boxer shorts and long black socks in this scenario. And he is standing outside. In winter. Talking to the neighbor kid’s snowman.

In Vision Quest Modine was a high school hard-ass wrestler who was also jumping a 23 year-old woman. Sweet. And he beat Shute! Shute was unbeatable. Today? Matt is a doddering old man who plays nursemaid to Eleven.

Important Sidebar:

Eleven is really Charlie McGee,but apparently stealing ideas in broad daylight is fine now. Stephen King should have trademarked that shit. Trademark! But he didn’t.

I am the firestarter, I am the firestarter. Prodigy. An eclectic gang. Who could forget their classic romantic ballad “Smack My Bitch Up?” Not feminists. They forget nothing. Like elephants with bad haircuts.

Sidebars come in italics.

Returning to the topic of getting old, Otter from Animal House plays a doddering doctor on the show Virgin River (my wife watches it). I may have even mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. Plus, in a note of supreme irony I can’t remember what I did or didn’t write. But enough about me.

Old Otter is married to Annette O’Toole who looks like Methusaleh’s older sister, warmed over. She was the hot girl in One on One with Robby Benson. Robby seemed like too much of a pussy in real life to be a D1 basketball player but who survived four open-heart surgeries in real life and thus exposed me for a cynical asshole. As if that needed exposing.

On the bright side, Karen Allen who played Otter’s buddy’s girlfriend in Animal House and who played Marian in Raiders of the Lost Ark hasn’t aged that badly. If she had been in The Last Crusade she might still look 27. But they got Sean Connery instead.

Sean Connery is, unfortunately, dead. But if he were alive he would have killed Richard Sackler with a pen gun, smoke an unfiltered cigarette, slammed a martini, and made it with a hot Russian brunette. In a space capsule.

Then smacked the bitch up.

Allegedly.

So I am flipping through the channels the other day and what do I see? That’s right. Fear Factor from 2003. It’s hard to believe, but they have that show on reruns. Anyway, I stopped to watch the contestants eat some testicles (probably goat balls is my guess) and while watching I marveled again at the ascendance of Joe Rogan. I mean, what viewer of Fear Factor could possibly imagined that this guy would one day be weighing on a national healthcare debate. From testicle purveyance to vaccine expert in just a couple of short decades. If only I had a time machine to go back and tell my younger self what would happen.

Weedledeedeeweedledeedeeweedledeedee (That’s the sound of my time machine. Don’t criticize. I don’t see your time machine anywhere. Read the Man in the Arena again, jerk.)

There I am, twenty years ago in the past. What a handsome devil. Weedledeedeeweedledeedee. My time machine becomes evident on the physical plane of 2003.

“Holy shit,” 2003 me says. I (formerly) jump up, prepared to defend myself. The time machine shudders to a stop, a cloud of smoke hisses as the current me disembarks.

“Who the hell are you?” 2003 me asks. It’s a natural question. I was so intelligent, even in my early 30s.

“I’m you.” I pause for dramatic effect and also because I am a trifle nauseous from time travel. “From the future,” I whisper/hiss. Also for dramatic effect.

“What the hell?” 2003 me says. Former me is a little suspicious. After all, he knows that physics says that time travel can only go forward. “That can’t be. The arrow of time only goes forward,” 2003 me says. See, I told you he knew.

I shake my head and chuckle. “Things have changed. I don’t want to get overly technical, but that wasn’t right.”

“No shit,” says 2003 me. I can tell he is scrutinizing me to see if I am the real McCoy.

I chuckle again. “It’s me. Or rather you. In twenty years.”

2003 me screws up his face. “It’s only been twenty years? And you look like that? What the hell? Have you been doing heroin for the last decade?”

My chuckling comes to a stop. “I think that is a little harsh.” Cheeky bastard. Wait until he’s 53.

“Really? What happened to your- our- hair?”

I rub my hand self-consciously through my locks. “What’s the matter with my hair?”

“A bunch of it is gone. And what is there isn’t even the right color.”

I shake my head. “That’s not important right now. I have something of great interest to tell you.”

2003 me leans in expectantly. “I hope that it is that hair can be replaced in twenty years.”

“Enough about my hair,” I reply. “Anyway, do you know the guy Joe Rogan from the show Fear Factor?”

“The host of that show where they eat goat balls?”

“That’s the one.”

“How is this going to be important?” 2003 me says impatiently.

“Because Joe Rogan eventually becomes a radio host who makes hundreds of millions of dollars. And he ends up influencing millions of people to not take a vaccine,” I add, triumphantly.

“What? Who in the hell is so stupid that they don’t get vaccinated? Didn’t they ever see pictures of smallpox?”

“This exactly what I say,” I reply. The resemblance to my own thoughts is eerie.

“What a second. Why are vaccines so important in twenty years?” 2003 me asks.

“No worries. You’ll find out,” I reply.

“It sounds like you people are pretty stupid in the future. I guess we can rule out flying cars and universal health insurance.”

My 2003 me is a little more arrogant than I remember. It is easy to be arrogant when you have all of your hair. I consider telling him about the open heart surgery that is coming his way, just to take him down a peg. But I let him off the hook.

“If you think that’s bad, wait until you see who gets elected president in 2016.”

“Who is it?” 2003 me asks, looking a bit depressed.

“I shouldn’t say. But it is Donald Trump.”

“What? That tabloid moron guy? You have to be kidding me.”

“I wish I were.”

“You know, I thought that you were here to help me in the future, like give me a sports almanac or something.”

“I don’t think that it would be wise to give you information that could change your future.”

“Why not? Did you do something really stupid in the future?”

Weedledeedee weedledeedee weedledeedee.

1983 me is shooting baskets in the driveway. Swish. Swish. Swish. Pre-puberty me is awesome.

“Hello, young me,” I say cheerfully as I exit the time machine.

“What the hell?” 1983 me says, backing toward the house. “Who the hell are you and where did you come from?”

“I’m you. From the future. Like Michael J. Fox.”

“The guy from Family Ties?”

“Oh, yeah,” I reply. “You aren’t that far yet.”

“What do you want?”

“I told you. I am you from the future.”

1983 edges closer to the door. “I don’t believe you. Look at your hair.”

“What?”

“There is no way I lose that much hair. Or gain that much weight. What are you, 60 or something?”

“You’re as bad as 2003 me. I guess it was genetic.”

“I don’t think I should be talking to you, whoever you are.”

“I told you. I am future you.”

“That’s really depressing, grandpa.”

I pause. I thought I would think this was really cool. “You know, I’m doing this for you.”

“That sounds a little weird. I think I need to head inside,” 1983 me says.

I shake my head. “Ok. Just go tell mommy.” I kick at the dirt from the past.

“Stupid little baby.”