BY BUD SMITH
Deleting the Facebook App Off My Phone Forever
A+
I always feel like a million bucks when I delete the Facebook App off my phone because I feel like I am deleting zillions of negative feelings from the world and so through this deletion, the world becomes this magical thing, stripped of barbs and venom that I can now carry around in my pocket. Everything is cotton candy and promise, like when Marty McFly first stumbles through Hill Valley and it’s 1955 and Mr. Sandman is playing. That silly little harmonized 🎶 bung-bung-bung-bung-bung-bung🎶 … Oh what happy oblivion. If I could delete the Facebook app while it was already deleted I would do that too, double deletion, triple deletion, all of it. My friend in Los Angeles says he has unfollowed every single person that he is currently friends with. When he logs into Facebook, it is just silence. It is just him. Oh what perfect untouched freshly fallen snow.
Reinstalling the Facebook App Again On My Phone
B-
And so I am back. I have reinstalled the Facebook app, but I am only back because I need to share this one meme that my buddy sent me on goddamn gmail and I’m trying to get the link to work but it’s not really working on the site or on the app, WTF? It’s not loading as a thumbnail, and ugh, not in the mood to share a post with no preview to the link as a thumbnail, who would click on that? And I just got self-Lazarus’d from the void, the cave, the netherworld. I’m back! I’m verified fresh! And I’d like my Welcome Back to the Social Media Wild Wild West to get at least 30 l ‘likes’ but that’s not gonna happen without a thumbnail preview, even on a Tuesday at 11am. The meme I’m sharing is a variation on that yellow lab in the creek meme where the yellow lab does this crazy trick, throwing the stick up in the air and casually catching it back in its mouth all the while, wading though a refreshing creek. Seen that? Oh god I hope so, except this GIF I’m trying to share is that original meme but when the dog catches the stick, pixelated sunglasses appear on its face and there are 8-bit orange explosions in the corner of the frame that were perfectly timed with the cymbal/guitar/bass and the first 4 bars of AC/DC’s Back In Black being played
Okay … got it to post. So! Mission accomplished! But probably gonna delete the Facebook app again in a few minutes. So if you need to get in touch, try any of the other billion ways of getting in touch: text, call, come over and knock on the door, instagram, twitter, snapchat, youtube comment, myspace, friendster, g+ chat, craigslist classified ad, candle lit seance, etc, etc, etc.
Poetry Readings in Los Angeles
C-
Friend in Los Angeles: “I saw an ad in a newspaper for a poetry reading, I’d just gotten to LA and was trying to figure out the arts scene, so I went to the poetry reading.”
Me: “As one does.”
Friend in Los Angeles: “Yeah, as one does. But when I got to the place, I saw it was in the Scientology Celebrity Center. But whatever, go around back, go into the basement, and inside and there was all this spooky candle light … and the guy who had placed the ad had me sit down and so I sat down and then you know what he did?”
Me: “He read you a poem and you read him a poem.”
Friend in Los Angeles: “No! He started talking to me all about scientology! He was like actively trying to recruit me. Telling me about magic volcanos and thetans and fuck, there was no poetry! So I yelled at him about that and then I left the goddamn fake poetry reading at the Scientology Celebrity Center and, fuck, I’m still kind of mad about that, ya know?”
My Other Friend in Los Angeles Who Bought 200k Twitter Followers
F-
First of all, if you look at his tweets, he only gets one or two likes and scrolling down his timeline, I don’t see him getting any retweets since September 8th (over a month ago), and after further investigation, I see the user who retweeted then, is most likely a sexbot.
We are IRL friends though, and the proof of that, is that every once in a while I’ll get a ‘like’, or a ‘heart’ or whatever from his liege, his highness, his holiness. That’s really cool of you, Other Friend From Los Angeles, thanks for liking my tweet! No, don’t even worry about the fact that you didn’t retweet my tweet that you liked, haha, that’s just silly. Why would that bother me? Congrats on the massive social media success. With 200k followers you’re basically a demi-god, so it makes sense when I see that you are @ing celebrities (even though they don’t write back). Other people would melt immediately, flesh all bubbled away and disintegrating at the mere thought of @ing a celebrity. Not you, ya social media hero.
Good news though, Other Friend in Los Angeles! There is a slow leak in the air mattress that you are going to be sleeping on whenyou come and visit me in Jersey City this Christmas, and I know about this slow leak, and I could fix it (even have the vinyl repair patch and the glue) but I’m not going to. Fuck you. Enjoy waking up on the floor at 3am, sometime around Christmas.
Refusing To Update An Operating System On a Cellphone Like Some Of My Facebook Friends Refuse to Stop Going to College Forever
D+
iOS is trying to get me to upgrade to 10.0.2 just like some of my Facebook friends are in the awkward position of having to get an MFA in order to traverse this ridiculous job market. They can’t make it happen with bachelor degrees, just as I cannot make it happen with iOS 10—my shit is starting to crash. There is some weird ass glitch and Candy Crush will no longer open unless I upgrade, but I will tell you the truth, I am terrified to see what this new operating system will do to my Uber and Spotify because last time I upgraded I couldn’t even hail a car because of a glitch and then because of another glitch I couldn’t stream a really sad song to channel how I felt into physical reality when I couldn’t just Uber away from my physical problems. Some of my Facebook friends are even being forced even father into the maze of academia, past MFA, forced to get their doctorates, which is even more horrifying to me, because it is like a foreshadowing into what I will have to do when iOS 10.0.3 comes out; when I have to upgrade so Twitter will keep twittering, or when iOS 10.0.4 comes out and I can no longer get Doodle Jump to Doodle Jump anymore because of some gap in the code that somebody probably left there as a protest to slave wages and sweat factory office conditions … or when iOS 10.0.5 comes out and onward and onwards and onward … forever locked in a vicious cycle of my Facebook friends being led deeper and deeper into the collegiate labyrinth … into post-grad-doctorate-demi-god-student loan-rabbithole-infinity; and me lying on this deflated air mattress, high as a kite, being forced to update this operating system so I can watch GIFS of yellow labs rocking out to AC/DC in a refreshing creek, that GIF looped till I die.
Bud Smith reports from Jersey City, NJ. Twitter: @bud_smith www.budsmithwrites.com. He wrote F250, Calm Face, and Dustbunny City, among others. He works heavy construction, and lives in Jersey City, NJ.