The young guy I spoke to while pumping gas wanted to know what I was up to for the weekend. “I’m on my way to Niagara Falls to see Jerry Seinfeld,” I said.

“You mean the artist?” replied the young guy.

“No, he’s a comedian,” I answered.

The Uber driver taking us to Fallsview Casino thought Jerry was a singer doing a concert.

“No, he’s a comedian,” I informed him.

The five thousand people in the vast OLG Theatre at the Fallsview Casino Friday night certainly know him. Seinfeld, the situation comedy that Jerry co-created (with Larry David) and starred in for nine seasons, became a television phenomenon that turned Jerry into a TV superstar and remains hugely popular in reruns to this day.

As soon as Jerry, nattily attired in a dark suit and tie, bounced on stage, his audience started laughing.  Jerry kept everyone in that helpless state for the next hour.

You would not necessarily describe Jerry as angry at the world, although it occasionally seemed that way. More accurate to report that he was in fine grumpy form about the minor inconveniences of life in general. He would prefer to be left alone and not have to talk to anyone. Talking to people is boring, he explained, yet he feels compelled to act as though he is interested when he is not.

When a woman cried out that she loved Jerry, he looked pleased. “I love you too,” he called back. “This is the perfect relationship. I love you. You love me. And we will never meet.”

Jerry does not like cellphones. He does not like streaming television. He mindlessly watches streaming shows although, like the rest of us, he never can remember what they are about—one more episode to go, one person left to kill. Then something else starts the process all over again.

He does not dislike AI. It sort of pleases him. For centuries all dumb people had to worry about was I. Now A has been invented for to do the thinking for dumb people. 

He has been married for twenty-six years. His wife is the shark always moving forward. He is the dolphin leaping mindlessly out of the water. From the moment Jerry married, he learned to never under any circumstances ask  a question. When he sees something new in the house, he does not ask where it came from. It’s there now. That’s all he needs to know. When something disappears, he does not ask where it went. What’s the use? It’s gone.

He does not like to go anywhere. But when his wife tells him where to go, he goes. Even though he doesn’t like being there.

Cities grow and expand. Towering buildings are constructed filled with people and more people. Yet despite all these people, nobody ever builds a new cemetery. Where do they put all those people once they are no longer here?