The coleslaw popsicle

this is the greatest battle mankind has ever witnessed

Hello, clowns!

As you know, artificial intelligence is a huge deal right now. It’s being used to do all sorts of shit, like generate silly photos of the pope in a puffy jacket, create sandwich recipes, and oh yeah, take over my job. No, seriously.

AI may eventually take my, as in me, Dannis’, actual job. If you don’t believe me, take a gander over the cool fun stuff I’ve been dealing with at work this week. Even your racist uncle’s favorite news organization’s written about the debacle at my office, so you know I’m having a grand old time right now.

I guess it is nice to know what the future holds for my legacy after I’m gone. But I figure if a robot is eventually going to slaughter me with lasers and take the throne of the greatest food writer in all of history, it better bring its fuckin’ A game.

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Before I launch into the rest of today’s newsletter, I’d like you all to know that this was originally slated to be behind The Great Paywall, but I ultimately felt the need to make this one free for all of you to read. That’s because it’s a timely one.

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So when this photo of a coleslaw popsicle went viral earlier this week, the spidey-senses tucked deep inside my ass started tingling.

There’s something slightly unnerving about the smoothness of the image, which is sort of the vibe a lot of AI-generated images give me before I find out they’re fake. And if you don’t believe that the popsicle is AI-generated, I did some digging around and found the source of it, which is a Twitter account, user @cocogarry.

While the caption of the pic reads “Nothin beats coleslaw pops on a hot summer day” and doesn’t directly address the whole AI thing, eventually @cocoburbank fesses up in a response to someone asking about it.

“This better be AI,” said a user, to which @cocoburbank says, “It is.”

So after firmly holding off on writing anything AI-related on the newsletter for years now, I decided that after this shitshow of a week, I’d tackle this situation head on. I could see if the concept of a digital coleslaw popsicle could slay me and take my place, or if a concoction of my own choosing could potentially win this battle.

Hell, if I failed, it’s not all bad. This would be a true warrior’s death.

I started by going to our local grocery store and purchasing a deli container of premade coleslaw.

You know the type, that weird junky creamy stuff that’s as sweet as a cabbage and mayo-flavored Jolly Rancher. Whoa. I think I just came up with the subject of a future edition of the newsletter.

I dug out my trustworthy Star Wars lightsaber popsicle mold, which might look familiar to some of you, because I’ve previously used it for SpaghettiO popsicles and a Red, White, and Brown pop. That previous sentence is simply more proof that I am the world’s greatest gift to mankind, and I dare any beep-bop-boop-beep program to outdo me. Do you hear me, Skynet?!

I spooned a bunch of the coleslaw into one of the sections of the lightsaber mold while Mr. Bee supervised.

As you can see by his little smile, he’s eagerly anticipating the computer disemboweling me in this digital game of joust we are playing.

In order to coax out all of the potential air bubbles in my coleslaw popsicle, I grabbed one of the eating utensils of my people, a chopstick, and wiggled it all around.

I’m sure my ancestors would give me a cultural pass to do this. After all, humanity’s fate depended on how I fared in this self-declared competition against a steel foe, powered by semiconductors and glops of solder.

I sealed the popsicle by jabbing a handle into the coleslaw and pushing out excess mayo juice.

My version of a revolting popsicle would be something I arbitrarily bought at the grocery store in the same trip as the coleslaw, just because I thought it would be funny.

I bought some really thick spinach artichoke dip, because I figured it’d hold up okay in a popsicle mold. Although the idea of pushing a bunch of mushy three-bean salad into a popsicle mold was pretty good too.

Under the careful supervision of Mr. Bee again, I repeated the process with the dip.

I spooned it into one of the popsicle chambers, wiggled a chopstick around in it to remove the excess air bubbles, and sealed it with a popsicle stick. It’s cool thinking I have been a scholar of the culinary arts for many years now, and this is the way I’ve chosen to exercise my knowledge.

I put the popsicles in the freezer, continued to read some real fun stuff about the state of my job, and cried myself to sleep.

The next day, it was time to decide my fate in front of a tribunal that consisted of Pepper, Harvey, and Mr. Bee.

I screwed the lightsaber handles into the popsicle mold (I know, this thing is ridiculous) as they watched me with their beady little eyes. These three are the alpha, the omega, and the diarrhea, and no detail would be missed by them during my battle against an AI-generated image.

I slowly twisted the handle of the coleslaw popsicle to loosen it in the mold, and when I pulled it out, I felt a sudden loss of resistance.

Sweet. I’d broken the coleslaw popsicle like a dumbass.

I let the gang inspect its remnants and then I took a bite of it.

Man, was this thing gnarly. It tasted about as sweet as a popsicle should, but also in my professional opinion, popsicles shouldn’t be comprised of cabbage and mayonnaise. I hated it. I asked Davida if she’d try some, and she reluctantly came over and nibbled on the broken edge of the frozen coleslaw pop.

She immediately got upset, spit the bits of cabbage out into the garbage, and didn’t say anything. Looks like I was up against some pretty stiff competition.

Then, using my gentle yet mighty strength, I coaxed the spinach artichoke popsicle out of the mold, all in one piece.

I immediately busted out laughing. This thing looked fucking hilarious. I mean, just look at it. The popsicle was mottled with bits of spinach and cubed chunks of artichoke hearts, and the mayo and cream cheese binder had fused together in order to form the most heavenly blade I’d ever seen.

Wielding this monstrous sword, I stabbed myself in the mouth with it and bit down. After chewing bits of spinach I laughed and threw my head back. Rather than being weirdly sweet and icy, the spinach artichoke dip had a royal and luxurious smoothness to it with leafy bits that immediately got stuck between my teeth. This was better than any ice cream novelty I’ve ever had.

Of course, the ultimate judge, other than the gang, of course, would be Davida. I’m not entirely sure how I convinced her to try it after she’d tasted the coleslaw popsicle, but I did.

After a delicate nibble and some deliberation, she spoke.

“I like this one better.”

Fuck you, computer, I win! My spinach artichoke popsicle was better than your coleslaw one, Davida says so, and what the fuck am I even saying right now? It doesn’t matter. What really matters is that I’ve discovered is that no computer can generate a concept or a piece of literature that’s funnier than mine. I have victoriously reclaimed my own humanity, and it all comes down to the two dumbest fucking popsicles I’ve ever seen.

But then again, the AI bot at work did slip a racial slur into one of the pieces, which in and of itself isn’t funny. What is funny, however, is that someone at my company was dumb enough to think that this was okay.

I’m beginning to think it’s not the AI we should be worried about.

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And like I mentioned before, today’s episode was originally scheduled to be behind the paywall, but I felt like you all should get a chance to read it. That being said, don’t forget to upgrade your subscription today for the full experience—you get unfettered access to the unlocked archives, future exclusive content, and more.

Okay, I hit Substack’s length limit—have a fantastic weekend, everyone. As always, I love you all, and I’ll hop into your inboxes again next week.