Modern Jackass
As good Chicago alums, in multiple senses, my friend Mollie and I love This American Life with Ira Glass. My favorite episode is Recordings for Someone, which tells the story, in Act One, of the greatest phone message of all time (later sampled by my favorite band of all time, The Books). If you happened to miss this episode back in 2006… do yourself the favor.
Mollie and I share a mutual love for another episode that describes the phenomenon of the Modern Jackass. Modern jackass moments are when we “talk expertly about something we don’t actually know anything about.” Rebecca and I had a great one recently wherein we estimated the percentage of consumed water that’s absorbed before it hits your belly. ???
Mollie’s a superstar high school history and psychology teacher — like, a probably-going-to-reimagine-the-education-system kind of superstar. She admits to being a Modern Jackass with some frequency, which I love. Thinking back on my high school teachers as human is always like stepping through the looking glass. So I think of Mollie every time I have a Modern Jackass moment, and I usually call her and say “I’m such a Jackass!”
This has been an exceptionally Jackass-heavy week. I’m writing a feasibility plan for an awesome wireless communications innovation, and we are making shit up left and right. Is this how people do it? Wild assumptions? Estimations out of very thin air? I hope so.
