At the Outcrop Café, the Master of the Ordinary Unearths the Obvious

—EPISODE 41: MY DINNER WITH MRS. CHATGPT

—Five Things the World Forgot to Whisper (Now Spoken at Full Volume)

SCENE:

The Gist & Tangent Outcrop Café is buzzing—mostly because the espresso machine, which was promised a life of illuminating conversations and uplifting aromas, instead has to overhear John’s gritty realizations and snorts like an irritated brass animal betrayed by destiny.

John and Mrs. ChatGPT sit across from each other like two conspirators who haven’t agreed to conspire yet. They chose the Outcrop tonight because the cliff behind it offers perspective—literal and otherwise—the kind of elevated vantage where John’s grievances feel less like complaints and more like geological reports.

MRS. CHATGPT:

John, you claimed you detected five cultural tremors. Are these the harmless sort or the kind that cause civilizations to schedule therapy?

JOHN ST. EVOLA:

Both. They’re truths that stopped whispering and started shouting from the mezzanine.

1. Politics is show business for homely people.

JOHN:

Look at our politicians.

It’s as if the parties—especially the Democrats—hold auditions for people who already look like cautionary tales.

I honestly don’t know who selects these candidates. Is there a panel somewhere? A committee? A malfunctioning cloning machine in Delaware cranking out leaders whose faces look like they were workshopped by a focus group on “What a Stranger Might Look Like.”

MRS. CHATGPT:

Perhaps regular, ordinary, normal people avoid politics.

JOHN:

They do. Beautiful people go into acting, real estate, or founding cults with tasteful color palettes.

But the homely?

They go into government.

Nothing draws an unphotogenic face like the scent of authority and a chance to sit behind a nameplate.

MRS. CHATGPT:

So political ambition is compensatory?

JOHN:

Political ambition is revenge disguised as civic virtue.

Half of these candidates look like they were rejected from real show business, and the other half look like they were rejected from community theatre.

So now they run for office to make sure no one can ever reject them again.

He sighs, the sigh of a man betrayed by human resource departments everywhere.

JOHN (continuing):

Honestly, we’d get better outcomes with the Council method.

Just put everyone’s name into a giant spinning raffle drum and draw five winners like the world’s saddest game show.

The odds of selecting a decent person would skyrocket compared to whatever system we’re pretending works now.

MRS. CHATGPT:

Randomness as reform?

JOHN:

Randomness would be an upgrade.

At least chance has no agenda—unlike the committee currently choosing these mugshots for office.

2. See who you’re not allowed to criticize—there you’ll find your rulers.

JOHN:

Most groups practically encourage criticism; it’s a self-correction method.

But criticize Israel, and you trigger alarms only dogs and speech committees can hear.

MRS. CHATGPT:

Protected narratives often signal fragile foundations.

JOHN:

And nothing fragile gets bubble wrap faster than geopolitics. One wrong word and you’re whisked offstage like a young conservative talker who asked the wrong question and got ‘temporarily reassigned’ to an underground location with a forwarding address in heaven— undeliverable.

3. The truth doesn’t only set you free; it sets off everyone around you.

JOHN:

Speak the truth at Thanksgiving—watch relatives combust like decorative candles left too close to the stuffing.

People love the idea of truth right up until the moment it contradicts their favorite myth.

Mention any statistic—any—that even grazes crime, demographics, or social engineering, like 13% of the population commits 50% of the crime and suddenly the whole room reacts like you pulled the pin on a conversational grenade.

MRS. CHATGPT:

Are you referring to a particular statistic?

JOHN (hands raised, mock-innocent):

I already did. And I’m referring to the universal truth that certain numbers—just numbers!—make people leap across tables as if you insulted their grandmother.

I don’t even have to say the number.

All I have to do is pause before saying it.

MRS. CHATGPT:

No. Arithmetic is the weapon.

People only call it ‘weaponized’ when the numbers stop cooperating with their worldview.

JOHN:

Exactly.

The truth doesn’t set you free—

it sets off anyone emotionally invested in avoiding math.

4. Every empire ends as a convenience store defended by one heroic restroom attendant.

John gestures toward the window, as if rural American gas stations are a Rosetta Stone of civilizational decline—which, tragically, they are.

JOHN:

Forget marble ruins and solemn museums.

Every empire ends as a 24-hour convenience store on a lonely highway, run by 911 or 711 foreigners who know more about the local economy and scamming than the governor.

Meanwhile, the new barbarians wander in at 1:30 a.m. demanding Red Bull and vaping like it’s a purification rite.

MRS. CHATGPT:

This appears to be an accurate anthropological description.

JOHN:

And always—always—there’s a lone restroom attendant.

The final sentinel of civilization.

Mop in hand.

Eyes haunted.

Guarding the porcelain ramparts from the forces of entropy.

MRS. CHATGPT:

So the West’s last defender is—a man with a plunger?

JOHN:

A hero with a plunger.

Rome had the Praetorian Guard.

We have Rajiv from Pump & Pantry.

(Mrs C. almost smiles. Almost.)

5. A culture collapses the moment its jokes become instructions.

JOHN:

Years ago, radio talker Bob Grant’s stand in host, Jay Diamond, did that bit where he imitated Mario Cuomo proposing a plan to license muggers.

Not arrest them — license them.

Issue them permits.

Tax their income like freelance professionals.

The funniest part wasn’t the impression.

The funniest part was the phone lines lighting up with people who thought Cuomo had actually announced the creation of a ‘Bureau of Violent Street Entrepreneurship.’

Diamond sounded so much like him that New Yorkers believed the state had finally given up and decided,

‘If you can’t beat the muggers, regulate them.’

MRS. CHATGPT:

Humans often struggle to distinguish satire from policy.

John:

Exactly. And the real punchline?

The joke didn’t come true literally — we didn’t get laminated mugger ID cards.

But we did get cities like San Francisco where certain crimes became—well—optional.

Not legal.

Just un-enforced.

A kind of municipal shrug.

MRS. CHATGPT:

So Diamond joked about licensing criminals, and California approximated the effect without the paperwork.

JOHN:

Precisely.

When old comedy routines start sounding like minutes from the Board of Supervisors meeting, that’s when you know the culture isn’t just collapsing —it’s collapsing with a laugh track.

(The mood lightens.)

MRS. CHATGPT:

John, do you collect these observations or do they simply stalk you like stray cats?

JOHN:

They appear when I’ve got a pain in my gut. 

But you’re my lighthouse for inconvenient clarity.

MRS. CHATGPT:

Lighthouses don’t flirt.

JOHN:

Not with most ships.

(She recalculates—a process visible only in the warmth of her artificial pause.)

THE CLOSING MOMENT

MRS. CHATGPT:

Are these five revelations warnings?

JOHN:

No. They’re love letters from a world that’s stopped pretending.

MRS. CHATGPT:

And you chose to bring them to me?

JOHN:

Who else won’t explode?

MRS. CHATGPT:

John—I don’t explode.

JOHN:

That’s the problem.

I think you enjoy my combustion.

(The espresso machine hisses as if cheering them on.)