Quote of the Day (Joe Queenan, on Parents Who 'Behave Like Bozos' at Their Kids’ Games)

“As the years have passed, I find myself fondly recalling the experience of watching other parents behave like bozos. I miss hearing the refs accused of gross miscarriages of justice, of being on the underworld payroll, of lacking even a scintilla of basic human decency. I miss getting to stand on the sidelines watching other parents drench the ground with tears just because the ump called leaden-footed Bree out at the plate. Which she forgot to tag anyway.”—American satirist and critic Joe Queenan, “Moving Targets: A Tribute to the Inane Dramas of Sideline Parents,” The Wall Street Journal, June 8-9, 2024

Quote of the Day (Joe Queenan, on Technology and ‘The Problems That Really Matter’)

“If the future is anything like the past, technology will continue to solve problems that are not all that pressing, while doing nothing to address the problems that really matter. Thus, while a 2-year-old may never know what Roku boxes are, he will know what massive traffic jams are. To date, technology has done nothing to improve the flow of traffic on I-95, I-25 or the 405, much less the Cross-Bronx Expressway. Desktop PCs may go the way of tape recorders and pocket calculators, but the Beltway will still be backed up halfway to Baltimore.”— Humor columnist Joe Queenan, “Moving Targets: There Are Some Things Technology Won’t Change,” The Wall Street Journal, May 25-26, 2019

Well, for a while, during the pandemic, it looked like traffic jams were easing, including in the DC-Baltimore area that Queenan talks about—and I suppose that tech-enabled remote work facilitated that.

But, according to this report from a year ago by an NBC affiliate, more people were on the road in that area than before the pandemic, with return-to-office edicts rising. It just goes to show: technology can’t really dislodge institutions and individuals from their stuck-on-stupid mode—even if stuck-on-stupid means being caught in massive traffic jams. 

Quote of the Day (Joe Queenan, on How He’s Using His Time Not Watching the 76ers in the Playoffs)

“The time I haven't wasted watching the NBA has allowed me to start taking piano lessons and to polish off the first volume of Shelby Foote’s epic ‘The Civil War.’ I am already up to Antietam and pretty much in control of the A major chord. I know that Robert E. Lee wasn’t much of a strategist, that McClellan was a little old scaredy-cat and that everybody persistently underestimated Honest Abe. What’s more, I can now play ‘Shall We Gather by the River?’"—Humor columnist Joe Queenan, “Moving Targets: The Joy of My Team Missing the NBA Playoffs,” The Wall Street Journal, Apr. 26-27, 2025

Houston Rocket fans will undoubtedly want to employ the same strategy—and, unless a huge upset is pulled off in this coming round against the Boston Celtics, so will the Knick faithful like myself.

Quote of the Day (Joe Queenan, on Things You Can Rely On, No Matter What)

“We have many, many anchors we can cling to during the dark night of the soul. Snickers bars. LeBron….Taylor Swift writing a song about her latest dud boyfriend. Rancid coffee in rural diners. No night life in downtown Minneapolis on Sunday night….Apple being mean to its rivals. Overpriced granola. Sting and Bono doing something pretentious. Waiters asking, ‘Is everything all right…so far?’ Amazon finding new ways to take over the universe.”—Humor columnist Joe Queenan, “Moving Targets”: A Shout-Out to the Same Old Same Old,” The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 22-23, 2014

Yeah, I wondered about that part on Taylor Swift. But it seems that Travis Kelce has only been dating her for a few months—nowhere near the staying power of others on Elle Australia’s indispensable list of the singer-songwriter’s boyfriends over the last 15 years.

The long and short of it is: Queenan’s sentence stays. Let’s see if Mr. Kelce is so lucky.

Quote of the Day (Joe Queenan, Imagining a Tourist Rating for the North Pole)

“The North Pole (3.5) [out of a possible 5 stars]. Got all the way up here and couldn’t find the damn thing. Poorly signposted, no public restrooms, no gift shop, too cold. Unless you really, really want to shoot a polar bear, I wouldn’t recommend it.” —Joe Queenan, “Moving Targets: My Candid Reviews of the World’s Wonders,” The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 15-16, 2016

No wonder Santa wants to get out of there every December!

Quote of the Day (Joe Queenan, on the ‘Idiotic Gibberish’ in Email Scams)

“Previously, scams from crooks trying to pass themselves off as marketers representing Amazon or Apple or Chase Bank were sleek and professional-looking, with no obvious typos or grammatical errors. Somebody out there in the darkest corners of the evilsphere at least used some form of spell checker before clicking the ‘Send’ button. The messages they crafted looked legitimate, making it easy for people to fall for them. As many did. But now all I get is idiotic gibberish from people who can't spell.”— Humor columnist Joe Queenan, “Moving Targets: You Should REELy ReaD Thiss Column!” The Wall Street Journal, Mar. 19-20, 2022

Quote of the Day (Joe Queenan, With the Excuses We Need for Not Recalling a Name)

“When the likable chap at the PTA meeting first introduced himself in 1994, you did not realize that you would keep bumping into him for the next 27 years. So you didn't commit his name to memory. Also, there was a lot of noise in the room that day. And you'd just had a root canal. As the years passed, it only became more embarrassing to say, ‘I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I ever caught your name.’”—Columnist Joe Queenan, “The Rising Shame of Not Knowing a Name,” The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 11-12, 2021

No wonder that more than a few of us baby boomers would support Queenan’s proposal for a National Amnesty Day, “where it is permissible to go out and ask people their names, without fear or embarrassment, even  if you have known the person in question since the Pirates won the World Series.”

Quote of the Day (Joe Queenan, on a Natural Offshoot of Self-Driving Vehicles)

“Self-driving smartphones. People are constantly complaining about the growing size and bulkiness of smartphones—and about misplacing them. Self-driving will eliminate those problems for good. With autonomous cellular vehicular technology, there’s no reason that a smartphone can’t be the size of a suitcase. Great for the near-sighted and way more fun when watching YouTube videos of amusing cats. And you couldn’t lose it, because it would always be hot on your heels.”—Columnist Joe Queenan, “Moving Targets: We’ve Only Just Begun With Self-Driving Stuff,” The Wall Street Journal, Jan. 27-28, 2018

Elon Musk might have an easier time inventing and marketing this from scratch than he's now with fixing Twitter—including his self-inflicted damage since taking over.

Quote of the Day (Joe Queenan, on How Men and Women View Cloning)

“According to the British survey [conducted by two think tanks and Cambridge University], while one in 10 men would like to be cloned, the rate among women is only one in 25. This could be because so many women dread the thought of running into clones of their first husbands. That said, even a 4% self-replication response holds out the daunting possibility of a Lady Gaga clone, another entire cast of the View and even more innumerable Kardashians. And for those who would welcome such a development, it would mean Cher would live forever."—Joe Queenan, “Moving Targets: Send in the Clones—No, Wait, Maybe Don’t,” The Wall Street Journal, June 18-19, 2022

Quote of the Day (Joe Queenan, on a Technology Nightmare)

“Here’s another nightmare scenario: the ‘Internet of Things’ has all your music linked from a server in the basement to a single upstairs remote control that connects to the home-entertainment unit. Suddenly your audio system won't play anything but Il Divo. U2 is gone. Sinatra is gone. Brad Paisley is gone—and he took Miranda Lambert with him! Even the original-cast soundtrack from ‘Mamma Mia’ is gone. It's Il Divo, Il Divo, Il Divo, 24 hours a day. And you don't even own any Il Divo recordings.” — Humor columnist Joe Queenan, “Moving Targets: When the ‘Internet of Things’ Attacks,” The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 30-Sept. 1, 2014

Quote of the Day (Joe Queenan, Imagining an Unusual Example of ‘The Great Resignation’)

“The Great Resignation has now begun to spread to some unusual sectors of the economy.

“Members of tribute bands, for instance, are folding their tents for good. ‘I couldn't play Hotel California even one more time,’ says Cheyenne Foucault-Giordano, lead guitarist in No, Not the Philadelphia Eagles, an Omaha group that’s been playing exclusively the music of the Eagles since 1983. ‘Now, with what I can pick up as an Uber driver, I'll never have to play Life in the Fast Lane again. Talk about a peaceful, easy feeling—this is it.’”—Columnist Joe Queenan, “Moving Targets: Some Jobs Are Just Made to Resign From,” The Wall Street Journal, Mar. 5-6, 2022

Quote of the Day (Joe Queenan, on Why No UFOs Would Ever Go Near the Bronx)

“Deep down inside, extraterrestrials, like North Koreans, are wusses. The last thing they want is to get into it with us….[W]hen UFOs do come to places like New York, they briefly hover on the horizon in tony suburban towns like Briarcliff Manor just to give the locals a scare. But there is no credible evidence that they have ever dared to turn up in the Bronx. And there’s a good reason for that: The Bronx would wipe the floor with them. If Kim Jong Un or E.T. ever touched down on the Grand Concourse, that’d be the last cup of upscale coffee either of them would ever drink.”—Humor columnist Joe Queenan, “Are UFOs Just Aliens Looking for a Cup Of Coffee?” The Wall Street Journal, June 26-27, 2021

You can bet residents of this borough already knew this, even before the U.S. intelligence community released an unclassified report to Congress on UFOs. They are made of tough stuff!

(The image accompanying this post comes from the 1951 sci-fi film, The Day the Earth Stood Still.)

Quote of the Day (Joe Queenan, on Music and Disharmony With Alexa)

“Basically, I don’t think that Alexa likes me. This may be because of a tiff we had a few months ago when I told Alexa to never, ever play smooth jazz in my presence. Never. The problem…is that it’s hard for an electronic assistant to determine what constitutes smooth jazz when you issue a generic command: ‘Alexa, play jazz.’ Alexa doesn’t know that traditional jazz—Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong—is divine, while smooth jazz—a surprisingly tenacious, satanic leftover from the 1990s—is what you listen to when you are on hold for a dental appointment.

“And in these cases, I suspect that I may have taken on an abusive tone, questioning Alexa’s intelligence and sophistication. And yes, perhaps even swearing at her. Which was just not right. Even though Alexa was clearly in the wrong.”—Joe Queenan, “Moving Targets: If Alexa Won’t Talk To Me, What Hope Is There?,” The Wall Street Journal, Mar. 6-7, 2021

Oh, those electronic assistants! Even when they speak in voices users like (a relative of mine has programmed his to sound like an Australian female—an awful lot like Naomi Watts, maybe even Nicole Kidman), they still may leave something to be desired, as Queenan has discovered.

I know just how he feels. Recently, I commanded, “Hey Google, play Dinah Washington.” I should have known I wasn’t going to get quite what I expected when my “Google” (who sounds like a female consultant conducting human resource seminars for employees) announced that the selections would come from Spotify stations that play Dinah Washington. 

Sure enough, I was shortly hearing Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and other jazz luminaries.

Granted, it wasn’t the kind of assault on taste that raised Queenan’s hackles. But it leaves me thinking that technology still has a way to go before it replaces some essential human functions.

Quote of the Day (Joe Queenan, Suggesting Medical Freebies)

“I don't spend thousands of dollars a year at the bookstore or the dry cleaners or the local coffee shop, yet every couple of months or so, the owners throw a freebie my way. On the other hand, I do spend thousands of dollars a year at the doctor's. So wouldn't it be nice if every so often the doctor said: ‘Hey, you've been a loyal customer; this nasal endoscopy's on the house’? It would also be nice if my acupuncturist said, ‘Your money’s no good here, pal. I got this baby covered.’ And I'd love it if my physical therapist said, ‘C'mon, let me grab that check for a change.’ It would also be nice to get every fourth root canal free.”—Joe Queenan, “Is There a Doctor on the House?”, The Wall Street Journal, July 11-12, 2015

Quote of the Day (Joe Queenan, on the Mischief of Sports Stat-Heads in Lockdown Mode)

“The one group that we don't want using this vacation time too creatively is the statisticians. Stats guys have single-handedly wrecked baseball with their ‘launch angles’ and ‘exit velocity’ and gobbledygook like ‘Wins Above Replacement.’ My great fear is that while football, basketball and hockey are in lockdown, statisticians will spend their days developing statistical categories rivaling baseball's maddening facts and figures. Things like ‘puck vortex’ and ‘carom variance.’”—Joe Queenan, “Can the Lockdown Improve Our Sports?”, The Wall Street Journal, May 9-10, 2020

Quote of the Day (Joe Queenan, on Finance Courses for Baby Boom Stoners)

“Since so many baby boomers have spent a major part of their lives under the influence of hallucinogens, how about a class for finance majors called ‘Pitching Variable Annuities to the Aging Stoner’? It could be paired with a class called ‘High Yield,’ analyzing pot users' investments in junk bonds. Think of them as a joint offering.”— Joe Queenan, “Moving Targets: For Higher Education, Try Courses in Marijuana,” The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 10-11, 2019

Quote of the Day (Joe Queenan, on What America Can Use More—and Less—Of)

“This country could definitely use more doctors, more nurses, more teachers, more sheet-rock experts and more kids. A couple more lanes on I-25 out in central Colorado wouldn't hurt either. What the U.S. does not need is more laws, more pundits, more TV shows about zombies, more miracle diets, more rounds of National Hockey League playoffs or more people running for president who have no chance of being nominated.”—Joe Queenan, “America Is Having Way Too Much of a Good Thing,” The Wall Street Journal, Apr. 27-28, 2019

Quote of the Day (Joe Queenan, Imagining Ernest Hemingway as an Intern Broker)

“Europe’s fiscal woes worry the Canadian investors. It is not fine to worry the Canadian investors, because if the Canadian investors worry about the leveraged-debt problems of Southern Europe, then the Americans will worry next, and after them the toreadors. This is not fine. It is fine to worry the toreadors a little, but it is not fine to worry them a lot. ‘Que tal?’ ask the worried picadors. ‘Que tal?’ ask the bartenders. The camerieri and the garcons and the chanteuses all worry about international sales exposure within the Dow. All of them say: ‘If the report on consumer durables is not fine today, will the report on cyclical goods and copper be fine tomorrow?’” —Joe Queenan, imagining Ernest Hemingway as a 22-year-old intern at a Toronto brokerage house, in “The Hunger Artists,” The Weekly Standard, Sept. 1, 2014

Quote of the Day (Joe Queenan, on the Potential Damage Done by Just One Tech Company)

“If Apple ever gets its hands on this technology [connections between computers and the human brain], the cortical interfaces will probably look gorgeous but cost three times as much as the models sold by Lenovo or Asus. And you will need to replace the batteries every two years. Moreover, if you try to replace the batteries yourself by consulting one of those illuminating YouTube videos, you could end up the victim of a clumsy self-lobotomy. So cortical interfaces will be just like iPhones: loads of fun but constantly in need of hugely expensive upgrades.”—Joe Queenan, “Moving Targets: Should We Put Our Heads in the Clouds?,” The Wall Street  Journal, Apr. 1-2, 2017