The spat106 short longform #28

Old men yelling at clouds

There is a time of life when people, especially men as they get older, get a lot angrier and more intolerant of the world’s present situation. This is known to me, and probably some other people, as the Old Man Yells at Cloud phenomenon, which references a fictional newspaper clipping in the Simpson’s where Abe Simpson, Homer Simpson’s father and more commonly known to the layperson as Grandpa Simpson, is as the headline suggests is yelling at a cloud. A topical example of this in the current election campaign is by Newstalk ZB’s Barry Soper is also doing some yelling, but instead of a cloud he is directing it at potential Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern every day. Even I can feel as a slowly ageing man (there’s a few greys starting to appear, just be aware I’m not talking about pubes though) I can get a bit angry at what’s happening in the world and not things that are justifiable to be angry at but things that help progress the world in terms of technology and musical trends. It happens.

Life just happens to pass you by and the change that comes with it is too much to bear sometimes so screaming at a cloud is the only way to help with that pain. That wasn’t so much a comedic statement as it was a sentence to be written but just imagine some people may be angry with the fact that people don’t write a weekly newsletter in their own handwriting, then rewrite it to every person that has subscribed (they don’t use a photocopier as that’s part of the advanced technology problem) and then send each newsletter through the postal system the recipient would expect to get it in 2 days, 1 day if they’re lucky. Instead a prick can write it up online using Google Docs, then send it through Mailchimp and the recipient gets it pretty much straight away. That’s when an old man would yell at the cloud aka data being stored online in logical pools.

Also yelling at the clouds is the only avenue for a lot of older men who know that doing sexist, racist and homophobic comments are not tolerated any more so the target of the frustration are formations in the sky which provide some precipitation and some cover from the solar heat to the organisms residing on the surface below.

What other options can old men yell at? The television is a good one, as long as it isn’t a Smart TV because then you may end up yelling at a loved one through the Skype app on the TV. You can yell at the radio if you’re an old man and shout at it since that medium failed to hold its own against the likes of smartphones which can provide radio coverage through apps and a user can also listen to tracks through Spotify. “Where did you go wrong?!” – an old man yelling at a radio, probably. Yelling at a brick wall instead of a cloud finally gives the saying it’s like talking to a brick wall the literal realisation it finally deserves.