GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1025: A FINAL(ISH) WORD

 As you can probably guess, after spending this week gauging how much time I have upon getting home from work, I've decided to end Goodnight, Fuckers again. This time more or less permanently. I don't discount ever returning to my nightly column, but for now it's done. I just don't have the time to dedicate to it. I'm grateful for the chance to write 25 more of these things after the last time I thought it was over. Not bad. Not bad at all.

I'll probably do a Good Morning, Fuckers! on Sunday, but for the foreseeable future I'm going to pull back on that, too. It's not like I've got anything to report, anyway. I haven't written a word since I moved out of Joliet except for these GFs.

I hate to leave you all in the lurch with Maga still calling the shots, so I'll give you some final advice for dealing with them before I head out that door.

Ever see Unforgiven? Gene Hackman played Little Bill, who would probably have been Maga if he was around today. He's not exactly the villain of the piece, but he's a bad guy. And that's generally what Maga is. They're not exactly the villains, but they're pretty bad people. It's not entirely their fault. They're angry over perceived problems. Problems that really aren't problems, but they've been blown waaaaaaay out of proportion by the true villains of our story, Trump and his cronies. They think something is being taken away from them. They're right, but they're wrong about the grift. They have no idea that their freedoms are being taken away by the very people they think walk on water. It sucks that they've latched themselves onto these assholes, but the good news is, it means they can be turned back from the Dark Side. I probably sound a little crazy for that, but Luke was the only one who believed he could save his father, and he did. (Spoiler.)

Little Bill was certain he was the hero of his story. "I was building a house," he told William Munny, like that would make any difference. The Magas are equally certain that they're the heroes of our story. They think they're the good guys. They were generally good people until they got sucked into this whirlwind of shit.

If you find yourself in a conversation or, more likely, an argument with a Maga, the secret to getting through to them is to knock them off their talking points. These are things that they have memorized from listening to Fox News and Newsmax and their ilk. Take them by the hand and lead them away from that. Get them talking about something they absolutely have to rely on their own opinions for, something they have to think about and argue on their own, because they don't have anything in the memory banks. If you can get them there, you can cognitively rewire them a little. Get them to really think about the things they believe.

At the very least you can win the argument. At the most? You might be able to save Darth Vader.

As Hunter S. Thompson used to say, "OK for now." Thank you for reading all these years. Watch this space, as I will occasionally post something new. Not another GF, at least not for a very long time, but I'll have new stuff for you to look at from time to time. I love you all, even that one guy (you know who you are). Without you . . . well, I'd probably still have written all these GFs, but I wouldn't have felt quite so good about it.

Thank you all. Goodnight, fuckers.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1024: OVER NOW

 To be read to this song.

I didn't want to go to Elmhurst today. There were a few things to do in town, but I was planning on doing them after work on Saturday. However, my supervisor at work said that, after tomorrow, I can work Fridays and Saturdays at home, thus saving me gas, tolls and time. Since I'm not going to be in Elmhurst on Saturday, I had to go there today.

I can only get packages in DeKalb from the USPS because the building I live in has a deal with them about putting packages in a separate mailbox. They don't have the same deal with UPS or anyone else, so if something gets shipped to me that way, whoever delivers it just leaves it at the outside door of my building where anyone can just grab it. So my old neighbor has allowed me to ship to her, but she can't do that anymore. I'll have to figure something else out for that, but since I was stopping by her place to get a couple of packages, I decided to go inside my old house to get a few things.

I've been grateful for the access, but I knew eventually I'd lose it. I got a few things I needed, including my old plunger. Why not get a new one? The ones at the grocery store and Ace are weak as all hell. Mine was pretty powerful, so I grabbed that, too. I also realized I'd only kept butter knives, so it would probably be a good idea to go back and get some knives that would actually cut food. And I found myself lacking hangers. I only had enough to hang the shirts I wear to work (minus one).

I'm glad I got these things, because the minute I left, as my neighbor texted me, someone showed up to change the locks. I no longer have access to my house. It truly is the end of an era.

I guess that means I can take the house keys off my ring.

I was not able to save my mom's piano. That was probably a pipe dream, anyway. I couldn't save my grandma's china cabinet, either. And I had to abandon most of my VHS collection.

I'm going to miss that place.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1023: A MONUMENT TO SATAN

Hello Satan.

 "Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize." Tom Lehrer said that, and thankfully satire kept on keeping on for a good long time after. I think about this quote every time Trump and his douchebags do something. Anything. What's left for satire? But that doesn't stop those of us who love to take the piss out of the government.

Kissinger finally died not soon enough but at the ripe old age of 100 back in 2023. I thought we'd never be rid of his wretched villainy. But he didn't shuffle off this mortal coil without a parting shot. One of the articles I read on the subject had a nice hooker, so I'm going to quote it: "Henry Kissinger was known for his monumental ego. And at the end of his life he asked for . . . an actual monument." And he wanted it bad. He advised his executors to pay whatever was necessary to make it happen, and he died with $80M, and that's the low estimate. He probably had a lot more.

Like it or not Kissinger was a pioneer. You know how government employees service contractors in an effort to secure an obscenely-high paying job in the private sector after they retire from "public service?" He fucking started that grift. It paid off pretty well, apparently. I'm loath to quote Kissinger in any of my writings, but it's apropos here. "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac." If that's any indication of his private life, he may have never had a dry dick since the Nixon administration.

The article I quoted above with the great hooker, written by James Mann and Hailey Fuchs, quotes Daniel Drezner, who is an expert on Kissinger. Drezner thinks Kissinger was mighty insecure, and that his request for a public monument over his grave in Arlington Cemetery is proof of that, but I don't buy it. He *is* right when he says that Kissinger wanted to rewrite his legacy. Not everyone drank his Flavor-Aid, and he knew it. He wanted to ensure that future Americans looked back on his legacy with awe and respect, not derision (like I do). I don't think that's got anything to do with insecurity. That's got everything to do with controlling the narrative, and he wanted to do that so badly that he tried it from beyond the grave.

Arlington generally doesn't allow private monuments, just the usual white gravestones that you see in war movies. They put a rule in place a few years back to ensure that would continue no matter what. However, Kissinger got his plot before the rule went into effect and was hoping that would be a neat loophole for his legacy.

But Arlington turned him down. They flat out said no, Kissinger would get the regular monument as a WWII vet, nothing more.

Thank fuck. I love Tom Lehrer (big surprise, I know), but who says satire is obsolete?

All the same I'm a little surprised that Trump didn't circle back and make this monument to Satan happen. If there is villainy to be performed, he's usually on point. To be fair he's got three more years (no more than that, I sincerely hope, for the sake of America), so it's not a done deal, but still.

Well, if that happens, I hope it's a life-sized nude statue of Kissinger. If I have to suffer, I think we all have to suffer. And I hope some wit chisels his tiny stone dick off and sells it on Etsy. I imagine this statue would make David look hung like a donkey.

Maybe Kissinger should have thought to have his monument built while he was still alive, like PT Barnum reading his own obituary. Now *that* would be satire.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1022: JOHN'S APARTMENT

 When I was a kid living with my mom, stepfather and (at the time) two baby brothers in an apartment across from the train tracks in Elmhurst, we had a few roommates with us: cockroaches. They were a persistent problem to the point where I had to check my shoes every morning. Because there was this one time I was putting them on for school, and I felt something move in one of them. I took it off, and two roaches dropped out and scurried under the couch I was sitting on. It had an effect on me. For many years thereafter I checked my shoes for bugs before putting them on.

And now that I have a new apartment I find myself in a similar situation. I also have baby mosquitos, but they're nothing compared to the surprise of seeing a roach in your bathroom at three in the morning.

I'm back to checking my shoes.

As with back then, they only come out at night, and they seem to stick to the bathroom and the kitchen. I found one in my bedroom, and it met its demise under a mail catalog shortly thereafter.

Most of them are little baby roaches, and when I sprayed the place down with Raid they stopped coming around. I confidently thought that I'd dealt with the situation well, but I also knew from experience that if you see one roach, there are possibly hundreds more of them. I didn't let my guard down.

Now the adults are coming out. I found two of them in the kitchen, but they were quick to evade me. I started seeing visions of me as Peter Weller in Of Unknown Origin.

One of the roaches looked big enough for me to put a leash on, but I don't want to be charged the pet fee by my landlord. The other, however, looked big enough to put a leash on me.

This morning they tried to mug me in the kitchen when I went for my morning Tang. Thankfully I was carrying the can of Raid in my free hand (the other held the crutch I get around on), and I sprayed the fuckers.

And they practically laughed at me. Big Ed, the one who might take me as a pet, attempted to knock the Raid from my hand with his brass knuckles, but I sprayed the bastards harder and harder until they finally fell over onto their backs, their legs flailing at the ceiling. I didn't let up. I sprayed them until I was certain they were dead. I held a mirror to Big Ed's nose, just to be sure.

I scraped them up with a shovel and disposed of them. But there might be more.

If you don't hear from me for a while, please check in. I don't want to end up like poor Joe . . .

Joe's Apartment

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1021: LIKE A KID AGAIN

 On Saturday I was working to unpack a lot of stuff and organize everything while I was doing so. I am insane because I thought it would be a good idea to organize my books before I shelve them in my study. And now those books are all over said study in piles . . . and all over my bedroom in piles . . . and I have started piling books in the kitchen. I have no idea when this lunacy will end, as I still have about 20 boxes of books to go. Now that I'm back to work, I don't have a ton of time to do that.

But because I'm in a cast and need a crutch to get around I have to take a lot of breaks. During one break I read while resting on my couch. Suddenly thunder rolled, and I realized that for the past ten minutes or so it had been raining pretty hard.

And I flashed back to when I was a kid. I was an active child, almost always outside, but on rainy days I always found a place to relax, usually a couch or my bed or somewhere, and I'd read the day away. I felt like that kid again for the first time in decades, and it did my heart good. I didn't want to go back to unpacking my books. I just wanted to continue reading during the thunderstorm.

But I knew I'd be back to work today, so I didn't have much time to lose.

Speaking of which, this is going to be my test week to see if I can still find time to write these GFs while working. If today was any indication, it's not looking good. But I'll keep going, and by Friday I'll know for sure if I'm retiring the ol' column again.

See? Pretty short one tonight.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1020: GREEN MAN

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I'm an atheist. As such, I do not believe in God or gods. However, I am a firm believer that the universe is a very strange fucking place, and that a lot of crazy shit is possible. I base that on personal knowledge of this exceptionally small corner of the universe, Earth, as well as my understanding of how the universe works. For example, did you know that the center of the Milky Way galaxy (and all galaxies) is a massive black hole? So massive that you can never get your mind around it? Saying it's bigger than the sun is like saying Lake Michigan is bigger than a drop of rain water. The mere fact that black holes exist is fucking nuts.

So I think it's possible for the universe to send a message. We receive these messages on a regular basis. For example, have you noticed the hellscape our weather has become recently? Perhaps this shit would calm down if we stopped treating our planet like a fucking doormat.

It's rare that the universe sends me such a blatant message, though, but I got one Wednesday night.

The first sign was from The Phoenician Scheme. I'd started watching it on Tuesday, but I got too tired and had to finish it Wednesday. The first thing I saw was the scene where they've all got mud on their faces after yet another plane crash. I saw Michael Cera's face and thought, huh, he looks kind of like Green Man. Meaning, the pagan Green Man. It meant nothing to me at the time, but . . .

The second sign was from Northern Exposure. Ed gets cursed by a magical green man. Graham Greene explains that Ed can never be a healer because he is plagued by the worst spirit ever, low self esteem.

The third sign came when I got a tickle in the back of my head. I googled Green Man, fully expecting the first thing to be from It's Always Sunny. The algorithm should have showed me that Greenman. But it showed me the pagan Green Man, symbol of rebirth, the new flowering season.

Greene goes on to say that low self esteem is the cause of all the heartbreak and destruction in the world. The only way Ed can banish his green man is to learn to love himself.

Unsurprisingly, I suffer from low self esteem. I've been working on trying to change that for at least a decade. On a regular basis, I do something dumb, and I slap my forehead and call myself a fucking idiot. I know that's really terrible to do, and I've been doing my best to stop that. And, of course, failing.

But I saw this as a real call to arms, especially now that I have this new permanent home, and I'm at a stage in my life where it is a time of renewal. I need to banish my own green man. I must learn to love myself. This is no longer optional. I can't just keep saying that I'm working on it, and when I fail, then double down on my self-loathing. I have to stop that. This is necessary to survival and, possibly, success.

So that night, just before I closed my eyes to go to bed, I whispered, "I love myself." I didn't really feel it, but it all starts with saying it. If you say it long enough, you will believe it. I'm fairly certain that's what got me in this mess in the first place.

Yesterday morning I accidentally knocked over my can of Monster. It was full, and it spilled on my coffee table. My reaction time is great, so it didn't ruin anything. Ordinarily I would have groaned and called myself a fucking moron. I would have continued to berate myself while cleaning it up. Instead, yesterday, I shrugged it off. It was an accident. Accidents happen. I didn't feel bad about it while I got some paper towels. And then I *realized* I didn't feel bad about it. I wasn't mad. I didn't despise myself. I felt pretty good.

Holy shit, I actually meant it!

Maybe I am a little crazy, but I think I made a promise with the universe. If I learn to love myself, I will succeed in life. The good news is, I keep my word. 

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1019: IS IT TIME?

 My weight goal has always been to get down to 200 pounds, ever since I went on my first diet in the summer between high school and college. I'd eaten McDonald's for dinner every night for five years at that point, and when I saw the video of me graduating, I thought I looked like Chris Farley. Not face-wise. I was heavy, and I moved like him.

Nothing against Farley. He was a funny dude. All the same, I did not want that for me.

I weighed 246 at the time. That summer, I lost forty pounds. I could fit in size L t-shirts again for the first time since I was in sixth grade. I kept struggling, but I plateaued at 205 before I ballooned out to 306.

I know I've gone over this before here, but I do have a few new readers who might not be aware.

Yesterday I went to the doctor and got weighed. I'm at 199, which means I can probably fit in L t-shirts again, but I don't want to. I think wearing the next size up is always more comfortable.

Also, the bottom of the shirt might not look all that great.

Not gonna lie, I have a spare tire of loose skin around my waist, and it does not look good. My belly button looks puckered. If I wore a smaller shirt, I think it would be a lot more obvious to everyone around me, and I'm not a big fan of this loose skin. It does not look good.

But when I'm wearing a shirt? So long as it's not tucked in, I look pretty damned good. Maybe even a little sexy. My face is a lot thinner, too. I can see my cheekbones now, for example. So I'm wondering if maybe I should shave the beard I usually hide my face fat behind. I don't think I have a double chin anymore, so do I really need the hair to hide it? The beard looks good. Great, even. But maybe it's time to show my face again.

What do you all think? Should I shave the beard? Growing one is fucking annoying, so if it doesn't look good, I'll be stuck with it for a while. Is it time?