I’ve got a bonanza PWSBK installment this time around. Why? Because despite the fact that San Francisco’s population has declined steadily over the last few years, there are still too many assholes and many of them need to be killed. Being the magnanimous guy I am, I extend the killing, as usual, to the much larger population.
PEOPLE IN LOVE WITH THEIR PH.D.S
Today, I ran into a guy I’ve known, personally and professionally, for about 5 years. He has a Ph.D. in something special, I don’t remember, and I don’t care. He’s incredibly smart, philosophical, blackly humorous. I take that back. He used to be those things. We used to be able to talk to each other, you know, to have conversations, many of them moving in their richness and detail. Somewhere during the last two or three years, somebody told him his shit doesn’t stink. Full of himself, arrogant, intolerant of thought processes not aligned with his own, he’s the model for a new class of folks I’ve had the bad fortune of meeting in recent years. Ph.D. dickheads.
Struggling for validity, they reach back through the years to their gratifying time earning the aforementioned credential, and pull forth from such shiny happy memories the emptiest form of attitude: self-importance.
Let me demonstrate.
Another guy I know — also formerly smart, philosophical, and blackly humorous — we had lunch together. He’s taken a position as VP of something important for a tenuous company, part think tank, part venture-capital experiment, part complete waste of time. He loves it. He’s into it. I particularly enjoy the way his voice rises an octave when he describes how his unrelated academic expertise (a Ph.D., wouldn’t you know) positioned him for this coolest of jobs ever.
Wake me when you’re done, will ya? Oh, and be killed.
PEOPLE WHO ARE OBLIVIOUS TO THE PRESENCE OF OTHER HUMANS
This one’s a no-brainer. You’re walking toward the front door of a store. In the doorway is a person who’s not facing you but who can easily see that you’re coming. This person is probably running his mouth, breathing through his mouth, holding the handles of a rudely huge baby stroller, eating, drunk, or any combination of the above. You don’t stop moving until you’re, oh, three inches from the person I’ve described. You take a beat. “Excuse me.” The look. “Oh, there’s another human being here.” Sometimes, it’s not a look that betrays intelligence. These assholes need to die. Get to it.
PEOPLE WHO TALK ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE WHEN ‘OTHER PEOPLE’ ARE RIGHT THERE
Who invented this one? You’re standing five feet from someone. You’ve got some nasty comment you want to share with a friend, and in a completely obvious conversational tone, you share it. You’ve clearly been heard. By the person about whom you’re talking. Even when that person looks at you, you have no idea what you’ve just done. You’re an idiot and you’re going to die a horrible death.
