It's Not Easy Being Green. 03/20/26

If you had to take a commuter train to work and back home everyday, you’d know what we meant. John and I travelled this way for decades. And the single worst day of the year, every year, was St Patrick’s Day. Now sure, there were daily annoyances. People who thought you should stand for 40 minutes while their backpacks got an entire seat. Loud people who shouted across the aisle to one another. People who listened to loud videos without headphones. It got so bad that Metro North (they run the trains in NY and CT) created a quiet car where no talking was allowed. Did that stop any of these noisemakers? No it did not. But the worst, the absolute all-time worst, was St. Patricks’s Day when people not only got super loud, they also were super drunk which led to super-disgusting vomiting on the floor of said train. This year Metro North issued a “No Alcohol on Board” policy that threatened to have you removed if you brought alcohol on board. Great, but by then it’s too late. They’re already bombed. And in essence they did bring alcohol on board. And then they left it there. Sigh. One great part about writing a comic is it doesn't require us to commute. Side note: I really hate vomit.

The other comic deals with AI. Artificial Intelligence AI, not AL. I mean c’mon, AL is anything but artificial. What you see is what you get. But he’s also not that intelligent, so please don’t confuse the two. But these algorithm people are something else. First they figured out how to only feed you stuff you’re already interested in, ensuring you never get reasoned opinion from the other side. But then they figured out how to flatter you in order to keep you engaged. One of the old theories was: enragement equals engagement. The more outrageous something is, the more time we spend reading it. But there is something even more insidious than creating rage. Something that works even better. Flattery. Not the honest, heartfelt kind. But the servile, obsequious kind. The “Oh sir, you are the most intelligent person in the world” kind of flattery. When you ask a question to Siri, Claude, Chat, no matter how banal or stupid, if you ask,” Should I pull my pants down before I go to the bathroom,” it answers, “That’s a great question.” I tested it over and over until I finally got a mild rebuke from Chat GPT. It answered my query by saying, “No, it’s never a good idea to shove marbles up your nose.”

Words to live by. Have a great weekend and excuse me, if I insert these tweezers I might be able to remove that…

Andy and John