The Last Word™

Issue #491 August 2015

Toll calls take their toll

I pleaded.I begged.I implored.I didn’t bubble, but I pleaded, I begged, and

I implored.I abandoned my traditional landline

telephone service in favor of a cell phone 5 yearsago, and I made it very clear to friends and fam thatit was not for frivolous purposes. That’s becauseevery call was a toll call—i.e., long-distance. Ibuyed a calling plan that let me stockpile minutesfor when I really needed them. But even if the callwas just up the street, it costed money. Instead ofcalling someone more than 5 miles away beinglong-distance like with Cincinnati Bell, now it wasall calls, and the charges were now paid not just bythe caller, but also the recipient of the call—i.e., me.

That’s the unregulated phone biz.I didn’t expect most people to understand

why I had to conserve minutes—but I explained it tofamily members a fillion times. Still, when familycalled, they often squandered many minutesbelaboring simple points. A couple months ago, Ifinally got fed up when a family member called meto rant at me for 20 minutes because I got money out of an ATM (from my own damn bank account, not theirs).That call alone was $5 down the johnnypooper. That’s not to mention the robocalls from the monopolistic HMOthat Kentucky requires us to use. It also didn’t help that my cell phone company breaks up text messages that aremore than a few words long—just so they can charge me more to receive each message.

So a few weeks ago, I got a new phone plan. It costs more than my old plan would have cost if I was stillallowed to use it sparingly like I used to. But it costs less than what my old plan would cost now that I’m forcedto field lengthy calls prying about my finances. Now I just pay a flat price each month.

A shame that we don’t truly control our own phone lines anymore, but I guess it’s all part of capitalism—the biggest behavior modification program in history.

Organ trail (a poopyism)

Something funny happened in Keizer, Oregon, back in 2007.And now it’s a poopyism, imagine that.

The city installed a row of 52 cement posts at a busyintersection to protect pedestrians from vehicles. All was well and gooduntil a few microseconds after the posts were installed—when peoplenoticed that the posts were shaped exactly like penises. The posts were adick army, if you will (or if you won’t).

When confronted with the fact that the posts resembled penises,the city manager said, “I can’t disagree with that.” But he said the cityordered the posts from a catalog, and the picture in the catalog did notlook like a penis. Maybe city officials confused it with something froma holiday toy catalog. They must have thought it was a Family TreeHouse or something.

After residents complained, the city proposed adding chains

between the posts, but said that if the posts continued to look like penises, they would be removed—thus flushing$20,000 of taxpayer money clean down the poopot.

All because people thought they saw penises everywhere.

So false...Funny how it seems...

I want the truth to be said. Especially about right-wing influences in the music business.It’s strange that any music act would be on the political right, because the Far Right itself is known for its

antimusic propaganda (which is why MTV was kept off cable here for its first 18 months). Then again, most bignames in music are zillionaires—so I guess it evens out.

Many of you know about American singers and musicians with far-right tendencies—like Ted Nugent andRay Stevens. But it isn’t only Americans. It’s British music stars too. For instance, Eric Clapton lives in denialthat one of his favorite politicians was racist.

I’ve discovered another British music figure whose right-wing leanings are just as ridiculous: SpandauBallet lead singer Tony Hadley. You may remember his videos from the early MTV era or that absurd suit he woreduring his Solid Gold appearance. Now Hadley is described as “the Tories’ biggest celebrity backer” and has beenreported to be interested in seeking public office as a member of the Conservative Party.

This 1980scrooner is a particularlyirritating brand of right-winger. Tony Hadleywould fit in well withAmerican talk radioback in the days whenAmerica’s urban areasstill had a fewconservatives and theycomplained about streetcrime that their policiescaused. Hadleybellyached, “The fabricof society is torn. Iwalked throughBlackpool and therewere gangs walking theback streets and 16-year-old pregnant womeneverywhere. What weneed is for David Cameron to be like Thatcher, to say, ‘Enough is enough, things have gone too far.’ Five-yearmandatory sentences for carrying a knife and 10 years for carrying a gun. We will build however many prisons weneed.” The right-wing hypocrisy is particularly bippus-busting, because conservatives are supposed to be the oneswho support the right to carry a weapon. I guess this right only applies to the Tea Party and III% criminals whoswaggered around in their soiled trousers threatening Bureau of Land Management officials during the ClivenBundy standoff.

Hadley brags that he’s never claimed public benefits—and acts like anyone who does is some sort offailure in life—but here again he’s being hypocritical. He was born at an English hospital that according toWikipedia was built to provide “free care to those of little means.” I can guess what happened: I suspect TonyHadley wasn’t always a right-wing gasbag. He probably used to be an easygoing guy who liked phone books andSpeak & Spells just like everyone else. But when he struck it big, his success spoiled him. Tony Hadley justwasn’t Tony Hadley anymore.

In interviews, the suave singer usually just wants to talk about his money, where he invests it, and hisexpensive Jaguars. “I love checks,” he also declared.

Useless observation I can’t fit anywhere else: When I was a sophomore at the fascist Bishop BrossartHigh School, our literature textbook included a play that—for no apparent reason—was accompanied by a photoof a man who strongly resembled Tony Hadley. I remember seeing that picture and bursting out laughing. I neverunderstood the play, but then again, we studied this play during the Pandemic of ‘88 which my high school helpedcause, so I missed pretty much all the coursework on it.

So—as the late Casey Kasem might say—now you know what’s happened to Spandau Ballet vocalistTony Hadley. On with the countdown!

How uncool people party like it’s 1999

This is what uncool people did on the Internet in 1953, except it was 1999.Because of computer problems at the start of this month—which helped delay this ish again—I was going

through some files I had hoarded for years to see what I could get rid of. Some of these items are on their fifthcomputer now, since computers these days last about 3 days before they become too slow to use. I found one littleblast from the past that I know I covered in these pages in the olden days, but it’s so outrageously idiotic I can’tresist covering it again in the newen days.

It happened in 1999. Can you guess what it was? That’s right, it was a Nyx meltdown. This was back inthe days when Nyx—which still claims today to be the world’s oldest ISP—was known for its smug, vocal refusalto control its spoiled children stampeding up and down Usenet, and justifying it under True Free Speach Now™.But while the peeps at Nyx claimed to be free speech whizzes, they tried censoring Usenet in full view of theentire big, mean world.

One day, someone posted a message selling a cable TV descrambler box. Someone replied to it, providinga link to a website that purported to give cheap, legal ways to descramble TV signals. Under the Constitution’sway, there was nothing illegal about it. But a Nyx guy went off half-cocked and reported that message to thesender’s ISP. Not the original ad. He reported the message replying to it. He said to this person’s ISP, “You’ve gota cable TV descrambler spammer using you as a web host. Please nuke.”

It was only in one newsgroup, genius. So it wasn’t spam. It wasn’t even an ad. The poster’s ISP correctlypointed this out. It “was a one time reply to another post.”

But the Nyx guy doubled down. He went on a Usenet abuse newsgroup and bawled his face off about theother ISP refusing to yank someone’s account just for replying to one post in one newsgroup. He labeled it a“rogue” ISP all because it wouldn’t do things his way.

In The Last Word of 1999, I envisioned the self-anointed Usenet spam police as looking something likethe owner of the comic book shop on The Simpsons crying and bawling...

That doesn’t mean spam is a good thing. It’s just that the Usenet Cabal in the late ‘90s had a muchdifferent definition of spam than normal people have. A general rule was that if something actually was spam, itwasn’t spam, according to them. (One of their favorite battle cries was, “Abuse on the ‘Net is not abuse of the‘Net.”) And vice versa.

Maybe all this could have been solved by a vacation to Coolsville where that guy could have learned howto be cool.

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