GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #289: SERIAL KILLER DOCUMENTARIES

Neflix these days is mostly known for stand up comedy and serial killer documentaries. I want to talk about the latter of this odd couple because I've recently watched a few of them. There is something I've noticed about most, if not all, of them.


Most times, I don't care much about the serial killer in question. What I do care about is the archival footage. Not the interviews with the killer, usually conducted behind bars. No, I mean the imagery of the world from back then. You get to see what America looked like before the corporations took over. You might see a Walmart, but I guarantee is will be spelled Wal-Mart. All you see are mom and pop stores. Corporate graffiti hasn't been smeared across the American landscape yet. You'll see a greasy burger joint instead of a McDonald's. You'll see local banks instead of PNC or US Bank or fucking Bank of America. You'll see gas stations that usually have the owner in the name of the place. It might be Standard Oil, which was *the* gas corporation back then, but it won't be BP or Shell or even a goddam Thornton's.


We still had a middle class back then, and they might not have thrived, but they were doing a lot better than what they have become today. It was a different time. Even looking at shows like Making a Murderer, which sticks to early '00s footage, looks like a different time, and that's not that far behind us.


"The world has moved on." Stephen King said that in The Dark Tower series. He wasn't kidding. I remember my first draft of Poor Bastards and Rich Fucks. I'd written it twenty years before it was published. I fucked it up the first time, but I learned from my mistakes, and it was what I needed it to be by the time you all read it. In that first draft, my main point was that the world hadn't changed all that much since the 'Fifties, so I figured it wouldn't have changed much in one hundred years. I was wrong. Sooooooooo fucking wrong. That's what helped me figure out where I fucked up that first draft. Things you see today will be gone or different twenty years from now. Ten years from now. Five years. Maybe even next year.


A lot of people chose not to move on with the world. They're the ones fucking it up for the rest of us. They're the ones with tiki torches. The ones who think they are nice guys so they are entitled to women's bodies. The ones who think there are only two genders because you either have a penis or a vagina.


Once upon a time there were dinosaurs. The world moved on, and then there were mammals. The world moved on and a lot of those died off. But a critter who moved on two legs instead of four managed to survive and move on with the world. And here we are.


We are always--ALWAYS--living during an extinction event. Let's try to make sure we're not on the doomed list this time, yeah? Let's move on with the world, change our ways, all that good shit.


While we still have the chance.


Also, I'm aware that this is the third GF in a row that involves taking a strong look at the past and the old ways of doing things. I'm doing this mostly because my present is horrible. I can't even sleep without problems. I dream about being helpless and fighting back and still being completely useless no matter what I do. I can't promise that this trend ends here, but I'll try to write about something different next time. To quote a song written by two bands, "My life was easier at five."