Note: Will Durst is a comedian and you may find some of his material offensive, or worse, not funny. His views do not necessarily reflect those of KALW.
Hey guys,
Will Durst here with a few choice words about the good, the bad, and the ugly of progress. Now don't get me wrong - this is no sepia toned love letter to a romantically imagined yesteryear. The past sucked. Society was slow and boring and today it's all about speed. Kids are streaming Hulu in the womb. But has anybody considered that we might focusing too much on the new rather than fine tuning the tried and true? For instance, - GPS units. Used to be only NASA had them. Now I have two. One in the car and one on my phone. And both insist on steering me over cliffs or into oncoming traffic.
Some things don’t really needed fixing. Such as toilets in public restrooms. How many times have you been startled by a presumptuous automatic flush? What was wrong with the big chrome toggle on the side? You could use your foot. Seems more sanitary than an un-requested butt douche.
Washbasins. Who among us hasn’t ended up shuffling from sink to sink waving our hands like a crazy person shooing away gnats under over near the faucet trying to find one calibrated for our correct height that activates the unseen electric eye? The faucets that do feature handles require engineering degrees from MIT to figure out. Most of us pine for the old hot on the left, cold on the right days. And forget the new hand dryers, powered by small jet engines, which replaced the automatic paper towel dispensers that were triggered by shoulder and elbow movements 30 feet away.
Television. Do we really need 800 channels? At least half of them are selling some home gym/ juicer/ skin moisturizer that grow hair and clean your pet while the pounds melt away. Besides by the time you’ve gone around the horn and scoped out what you want to watch, it’s over.
And zombies. Whose idea was it to come up with fast smart zombies? Aren't zombies supposed to trudge and meander. I miss slow, dim zombies. Of course we still have the Republican Party for that. Sorry. Couldn’t resist.