Month: April 2017

    Me:  Uncle Eddy – haven’t heard from you in a while?

Eddy:  Yeh.  Sorry, kid.  I had to turn that damned cell phone off for a few days.  This social media crap has got me baffled, and my grandkids ain’t helping cause they’re sending me stuff from facebook, and twitter, and smapper-yapper and all that stuff.   It’s crap, Charlie, just crap.

Me: Tell me your problem.

Eddy:  Every time I turn on the damned news now, they all gotta tell me that “social media is all lit up” every time something happens..  Like it’s important I know what them poster-toaster people think.

Me: Well, maybe it’s the voice of the people.

Eddy:  Bullcrap!  It’s too many voices, that’s what it is.  Way too many.  Look at it this way, kid.  From 8 to 6 everyday, most smart people are at work.  Or lookin’ for it.  So the people smart enough to hold jobs,  are too damned busy to be tweety-snapping around.  So you got mostly young people, even high school kids howling about this and yowling about that.  So you see some stuff there and maybe it comes from some lawyer or CPA but probably it’s from some 15-year old who got nothing better to do.  And why  the hell do I care what any 15-year old thinks – or every 15-year old  in the State of Ohio?

Me:  Well, it’s true that it’s a young people’s media.

Eddy:  So then what’s it worth, Charlie?  Now you still do that professor stuff,  right.  So how much time you got to go sticking up pictures of cats and dogs?

Me:  Not much, and  I don’t.

Eddy:  Kids do.  And that damn TV news makes it worse.  While Wolfman Blitzer is talking, they play them damn tweety comments on the screen.  I listen to old Wolf cause he’s smart, but why should I get some damned kids opinion too?  Ain’t right.  If I want a kid’s opinion, I’ll call my grand-kids.   You watch TV the last 2 days and see them kids at Berkeley?  Cost a year’s pay to send a kid there and they’re so damned smart they start riots, set fires, and post it on the internet.  I’d wallop my own kids behind they did that.  You’re lookin’ at Social Media there, Charlie.  That’s what it’s coming to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Me:  Uncle Ed.   I called that new number you left me.  Aren’t you at home?

Eddy:  I am, Charlie, but I got me a cell phone. Everybody was on my case.  Your Aunt Marge, the kids, guys down at the VFW.  So I got one and had the grandkids show me how to use it.

Me:  Hey, so I could text you now.

Eddy:  You do and I’ll thump your ass when I see you.   Look here – it’s good you can be in touch when you need to be in touch.   But I ain’t getting carried away like all them other people.  I got a phone, OK?  But I’m still just Uncle Eddy.

Me:  Not sure what you mean, Uncle Ed.

Eddy:  Cause what I don’t like is it seems these damned things make everybody feel important.  It’s like everybody gets them a phone and right away they got to tell everybody else in the world about what they’re doing.  They’re facebooking and snapper-chatting and posting and fart-smarting and all that whatever.  I’m eating lunch at the diner and some guys taking pictures of his hamburger and texting it to someone.  Like no one has ever seen a hamburger.  I’m in the mens room and some guys in a stall and I hear him talking while he’s taking a dump.  What the hell’s so important he can’t take a dump in peace.   Maybe I should call you when I’m taking a dump.

Me: I think we can skip that.

Eddy:  But it don’t stop, kid.   It ain’t right.  I think it makes kids think they’re more important than they are.  The world don’t care about everything you do.  It don’t want to see 37 pictures of what you bought at the Safeway.  I ain’t the smartest guy in the world, but when I’m watching a Steelers game don’t go texting me “did you see that play?”.   I may not be a genius but I don’t need no help watching a football game.  And Trump may tweet-post all that crap every day but that don’t mean that I got to tweety-post him back because frankly who gives a damn what Eddy in the Mahoning Valley thinks?   Nobody, that’s who.

Me:  Ed, I got to get down to the school. We’ll pick this up later.

Eddy:  No problem. Keep talking. Wedge that sumbitch on your shoulder like them gals in the Walmart  when they shop and we can keep on talking.  Won’t miss a beat.  Just turn the damn thing off if you got to take a dump.

Me:  Bye, Uncle Ed.