People Keep Bothering Me with Details

By Pedro Hoffmeister

 

It’s beginning to snow in Tucson and it’s 65 degrees in Seattle, Washington
in February
But our president says…
He’s tweeting about…

And we should listen to him because he’s the best president we’ve had

this entire year.

That’s a fact. He’s our man. Our leader.

Another fact:
Lori Loughlin, Felicity Huffman, other celebrities have paid money to get their children into some of the most privileged universities, Southern Cal, The Ivies,
where the reported rape rate is higher than at nearby public schools,
Where freshman girls rush sororities, visit fraternities, trip and fall into date-rapists’ arms
But it’s okay
because some of those freshman girls look 13 when they’re 18,
look like
kids

and we all know kids don’t matter – at least not specifically – because there are so many of them.

Try this: Have you ever attempted to think of every single child on earth at the same time?

Exactly.
It’s  too overwhelming             like
trying to name
the name of every celebrity I’ve ever read about.

But children
without names that anyone will learn,
– people keep telling me this –
are in detention centers, Southwest Key in Phoenix, or
Southwest Key in Tucson, or Southwest Key in Youngtown, Arizona
Boring company name – if you ask me,
Boring white vans driving children through boring black gates,
They can do better.

People tell me that a different nameless child is picking the Uzbek cotton that will go into the tongue of my Nike shoes, but the tag on the shoes never says
MADE BY A CHILD’S HANDS
And that stuff is regulated by governments, so this story can’t be true
And anyway
I’m grateful because my kicks will look flawless.

Meanwhile, Asian children (it doesn’t matter where – they all look the same, be honest, they really, really do)
Asian children are wiping
anti-scratch chemicals onto the glass faces of Samsungs, ipads, iphones…
The supervisors in the factories saying something like:

“Dip the rag into the solution, wipe it across the screen, make sure to cover the entire surface, set the glass onto the belt – carefully – don’t touch the front with your grubby fingers. Now dip the rag again…”

These kids are careful – thank God – they care about quality

I’m told
these factories rotate their children every six weeks to let their hands recover from the chemicals – which is nice –
they let the children’s fingerpads and palms heal.
or they replace the children with a new crop – they’re thoughtful about things like that,
like crop rotations to keep our Southern soil healthy.
And I understand that we have to keep the products healthy – that’s what matters – no matter how hard the labor is
Plus, the children are a renewable energy source,

My friend Bill always says, “The dream of America
is a dream of small, willing hands.”

Which is funny

But this evening – all across the United States, and seriously, not funny – we’re watching our people talk about their feelings on The Bachelor
I just feel that…
I’m developing feeling for…
and these feelings are just so…

The thing I love about this show:
No one on this show wastes our time talking about
Authors
Painters
Poets
Activists

They understand that we need to take a break from TOO MUCH THINKING

And this show lets me put myself in The Bachelor’s shoes, stare out at all those women who are available to me

Hannah G., will you accept this rose?

No, actually,
Hannah B. is way skinnier
Ooh, Hannah B. in a bikini…

Hannah B., will you accept this rose?

I’ve noticed that roses on my phone look just as real as the roses in my neighbor’s yard when
I’m looking through my front window,
Realer roses
Truer

I like rose filters,
Which make me think of rose emojis

And emojis remind me of my friend KT who hates emojis – for some stupid reason or another – and doesn’t understand why the emoji movie is so funny
KT,
one of those people who tells me that
Foxconn used Chinese teen interns for 11-hour workdays to produce the iphone X.
Tells me this story twice even after I tell her that
Apple already released a statement that made it clear:
The Chinese teen interns worked voluntarily.

I do like factoids like this:
Professor E.O. Wilson discovered that the collective weight of all ants on earth matches the collective weight of all humans.

He calls the two species symbiotic
somehow
We rise,
we rise,

Like we’ve got diamonds at the meetings
Of our…
Wait, what are the physical characteristics of ants? Or physiological?
Psycho-spiritual?

What I don’t know:
Are ants spiritually and theologically aligned with my religion?

What I do know but I really DON’T care about:
Proceeds from mining for US electronics in the Congo have funded a civil war.

Please don’t tell me about that again
because where even is the Congo? Africa somewhere?

Here’s a question that matters to the people I care about the most:

Are you a part of a meal service, and – if so – which one?

Along with things I don’t care about, there are people I don’t care about as well
Or people I just don’t like
For example:
Stan from IT said something about “Hi-Def drone footage of the fracking fields of Canada” as I was searching music videos on Youtube with my friend at work, Susan.
Susan and I both laughed SO hard.

Stan said:
“What’s the matter?
or better yet,
What else matters?”

And I said to him:
“I matter.
I’m sure I matter.”
Then I looked at Susan and thought of something really smart to say:
“I matter because I know enough about science to be sure that I’m made of matter,
get it?”
Then Susan and I laughed hard again.

But Stan didn’t, and that’s what’s wrong with him. He doesn’t get things.

This is also annoying – and on the same topic:

In my Twitter feed the other day, someone Retweeted:

Is all the matter in the universe finite reconstructive
or infinite dimensional?

 

After publishing books with Penguin, Random House, and Simon & Schuster, Pedro Hoffmeister just self-published a collection of essays titled Confessions of the Last Man on Earth Without a Cell Phone, so he could say anything he wanted to say. No content editors nixing “questionable content.” No publicists’ input on what sells. Just strong personal opinions, satire, and humor.

Amplifier poster art by Chip Thomas, photographer, public artist, activist and physician who has been working between Monument Valley and The Grand Canyon on the Navajo nation since 1987. Enjoy more of his activist and collaborative artwork here and his photography here.