Five years ago I revealed that an unknown number of public figures were created as clones of the late great absurdist comedian Andy Kaufman. That article is linked here: Theory: We Are All Andy Now.

This was a tremendous breakthrough. Without this knowledge, we would have been powerless against an army of Andys. It’s been difficult to get by even knowing that characters like Sarah Palin, Rob Ford, Fred Phelps, Julian Assange, and Keith Olbermann are clones of a legendary avant-garde prankster. The current Republican Party candidates for the U.S. Presidency are a clean sweep of 100% Andys. If we didn’t know that, our whole world would be a joke. I mean, think about it.

Two things came up this week that shed further darkness on the situation. I mentioned Steve Rocco, a local political character here, as an Andy. Since I hadn’t done enough research, I didn’t realize that the person commenting at the time about Andy’s death being faked was… Rocco himself. Not only is he an Andy, but his shtick encompasses “Andy Death Denier” along with Mafia paranoia, sunglasses and hat combo, and alleged ketchup theft. So this is a recursive Andy, a meta-Andy, or, scariest of all, a self-aware Andy clone.

Which leads to the next problem. Clearly there are both male and female Andys, and some of them have produced children. Has anyone considered the potential impact of a generation of half-Andys? And if two Andys mate, what happens then?

There’s been talk about a limit to the absurd. Could we have reached the state in human civilization where that combination of meaningless narcissism, absurd behavior, and destructive charisma has peaked? I think not. The second generation Andys are coming. Like the physicists of the 19th century, we are about to be jolted into a new age of Quantum Andys, in which the overwhelming confusion and horror of public life turns us all into Andy, one by one.

I’ve known all my life that Eugene Ionèsco was right about our world. And Rhinoceros has enough parallels with the last decade here already. But I had no idea we were all to be Andy. Who will be the last to go?