GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #785: NOSTALGIA FOR AN AGE THAT NEVER EXISTED

 Even though the song isn't really about the topic tonight, the title is apropos, so you might as well read this while listening to this.

As some of you might know, back in January 2020, I went to the ER suffering from another bout of pancreatitis, and they decided to hold onto me. While I was there I went into severe alcohol withdrawal, so they wound up keeping me for a couple of weeks while it ran its course through my system. I can't remember if I went into my hallucinations here before. When I went back to look I didn't find anything. Unless I wrote about it later.

Regardless, not too long ago I started feeling nostalgia for one of those hallucinations. I didn't know that was possible, but a few people told me that they were familiar with the sensation. It was the one in which I went to the middle of a wide open field, to a burger stand made entirely of plastic on the outside, including a bench where a plastic milkman sat. I got the feeling that I sat on that bench all the time when I was a kid. In the hallucination, I sat there again, and then I went inside, where it looked kind of like a neighborhood bar.

It was the last of my hallucinations before I came back to myself in my hospital room. When I came out of it, that hallucination made me feel like I'd rediscovered a forgotten piece of my childhood. It had been so vivid that I asked my grandmother about it when I got home. Because I could swear that me, her, Gramps and my cousin, Erik, used to walk there from the house we lived in back then. She was still a few months away from dementia, so her memory was still good. She had no recollection of this place.

It bothered me for a while because the memory of going there as a child was so real. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought that maybe it really was just a hallucination. Because this open field never existed. I reasoned that if it was within walking distance of that house, I'd remember where it was because I live maybe two blocks from there today. And there is nowhere that place could have been.

So I let it go until a few months ago when I remembered the hallucination, in particular the plastic milkman on the bench, and I felt nostalgia for it. Having nostalgia for something that never existed is a very weird feeling for me. I'm not given to nostalgia often these days, but to feel it for something I made up during alcohol withdrawal is just too fucking weird for me.

And then, last week, I dreamed of that place again. AND I FINALLY KNOW WHY I FELT LIKE THIS PLACE ACTUALLY EXISTED.

I may have talked about my dream world before. It's a close approximation of my neighborhood, but depending on the dream I'm having it can be very different. I went to that dream world where I found this burger stand again. I sat on the bench with the plastic milkman. I went inside and ordered food that I didn't get to eat because I woke up too soon.

And when I woke up I remembered where I'd known this place before. I'd dreamed about it when I was a child. The wide open field was on the opposite side of the train tracks. There's a neighborhood back there, but in my dream world there's just that field. And that burger stand. And I used to dream about it all the time back then. Weird that my mom never went with us, though. Or Erik's mom, for that matter. But we went there a lot, and then I grew up and forgot about this recurring dream until the alcohol withdrawal brought me back.

It took me almost four years to figure that out. I'm usually a lot quicker on the uptake, but the human brain is a strange place. I had a few other hallucinations, one of which I know for a fact came from my childhood. It makes me wonder about the others and where they might have come from.

_

OK, as I'm sure you suspected, this is the last GF column of the year. I usually take my writing vacation starting with Thanksgiving week, during which time I lay off writing so much. I have a few things to work on, but I'm not going to bust my ass over it. It's mostly editing stuff, anyway. I have one more newsletter for Sunday, and that'll be it from me for the rest of 2023. Unless I have news to share, and I might. If you follow the newsletter, you'll know why.

All right. I still have plenty of GF ideas for when I return, and I'm sure I'll have even more by then. I think I got to everything time sensitive. For now, at least. Anyway, I'll be back in January unless the universe pulls a Donnie Darko on me while I'm in bed. Until then, please remember to . . .

And party on, dudes!

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #784: LUNATICS RUNNING THE ASYLUM

Or maybe the criminals running the courts.

 

Earlier this week the Supreme Court made an announcement that they now have a Code of Ethics. Who wrote this code? Oh yeah . . . about that. They did.

They tried to make it sound like they've always had this code because they borrowed it from the lower courts. For the lower courts, it's essential for a judge to recuse themselves if there is a conflict of interest in a case they've been assigned. If they don't, there is a punishment. If the defendant appeals, then the appeals judge can look at the original judge, and if there's a conflict of interest, and that guy didn't recuse himself . . . yeah. The same goes for the appeals judge when the Supreme Court is looking at it. Except, who watches the Watchmen?

That's right. There is no way to enforce the rules when it comes to Supreme Court Justices. There is no higher court to hand down penalties or to reverse decisions. So their new code of ethics is a fifteen page waste of time.

But they're not worried about that. Why would they be?

The first analogy that came to mind is letting corporations make up their own regulations, and we all know how that worked out. Hence the need for strict corporate regulation. But that goes over a lot of people's heads sometimes. I have a better analogy, one that will be sure to cut to the quick for any law and order kind of person accidentally reading this.

You know who should make up the rules in prison? The prisoners. Get rid of the warden and the guards and everything else, and let them regulate themselves.

I'm not a big fan of prisons, but typing those words made even my butthole clench a little. Perhaps it's time to regulate these Justices. Clearly they can't do it on their own. Or we can continue to laugh at the joke. Too many people would envision themselves as the Joker in a case like this. Edgy people (almost always guys) see themselves as the jester cutting through the bullshit to make room for laughter, and the king can't ever punish the jester, can he?

I suspect these Joker wannabes are more along the lines of this guy, though:

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #783: LONGPLAYER AND 100 YEARS

 

Did you know that on January 1, 2000, Jem Finer, a founding member of the Pogues, set in motion a song that will play for 1000 years? That's right, it is currently playing now and will not stop playing until December 31, 2999. It's called "Longplayer," and I might surprise you with my opinion on this one.

Because I think it's fucking stupid.

Obviously it's not a real song. If it was, it would have taken at least 1000 years to write it, and who has the time? So what Finer did was write the beginning of it, and then he turned the song over to an algorithm to make up the rest of it based on the beginning. It's not supposed to imitate or repeat itself, so the music is supposed to constantly change over the course of a millennium. 20 minutes and 20 seconds were composed before the algorithm took over, and it's played on a single instrument. That instrument is made of 234 pieces, so I guess that's where the variety comes in. Although it's mostly Tibetan bowls and gongs, so I'm not sure how much variety that gets you.

It is broadcast from a lighthouse, and there are a bunch of listening posts all over the UK, if you're interested in giving it a listen. I'm not. I mean, I guess I'd listen to the first 20 minutes and 20 seconds, but after that? I have no interest. The argument could be made that since no human being could live to hear the whole thing, that it's kind of poetic that it's in the language of robots, but I don't buy it.

Because it's a very human hubris, taking it for granted that we'll still be around in 1000 years. With the situation in Ukraine and the Gaza strip, hopes aren't high that we'll still be around in 100 years. Maybe not even next week, all things considered. Although it might not come to that. US military leadership isn't all that strong right now thanks to Sen. Tuberville holding up all those promotions. I think it would be pretty funny if we can't thrust ourselves dick first into WWIII because some pud in Congress doesn't want soldiers to get a free ride on abortions. But I'm pretty sure we're going in anyway, and if a certain fuckface gets elected, it won't be long before we ejaculate nukes all over the world . . . and then get some back for our troubles. So yeah, I don't think the song will play out as planned.

Hey, speaking of 100 years, this song reminds me of a Robert Rodriguez film that's not supposed to be released for a hundred years. It is, unsurprisingly, called 100 Years, and it stars John Malkovich. All I know is that it's an SF flick that was produced by . . . Remy Martin? The cognac people?

It's supposed to be in honor of their Louis XIII, which takes 100 years to make. Apparently Rodriguez thought he was making some kind of commercial for them, and then they told him they were going to seal it in a safe for a hundred years before releasing it on November 18, 2115. That safe is designed to not open until the date of the premiere. And that safe is fucking bulletproof. They're not fucking around. Invitations already went out to 1000 guests, including Malkovich and Rodriguez, but what are the odds that anyone is going to live long enough to cash those tickets in?

Those tickets, by the way, are made of metal so they won't get damaged and can easily be passed down to descendants who actually do stand a chance of seeing the film one day. This is slightly less stupid than "Longplayer," because the film was entirely made by actual people, but I still say it's kinda stupid because I think 1000 people in the future are going to be disappointed. Unless they're the kind of people who like Super Bowl commercials. I imagine that this would be like the ultimate Super Bowl commercial, but you know how I feel about advertising and advertisers. They didn't exist on the level they do now when Dante wrote his Divine Comedy, but if there was a modern version of it, these sons of bitches would have their own circle of Hell. Fairly close to Satan, too. Maybe not in his mouths with Judas and Cassius and Brutus, but close enough.

I get that we need to have a long view of the world if we're going to have a chance of civilization still being here when "Longplayer" ends, but this is not the shit we should be dedicating our resources to.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #782: INK BY THE BARREL

 

Mark Twain said that, and he was talking about journalists. I always bring my shit hammer of truth down on the lack of journalistic ethics these days, but tonight is about saying fuck you to the Man. Because there's a startling new trend going on in local communities when it comes to the press. The way those in power deal with reporters is by ticketing them or even arresting them, both things in clear violation of the First Amendment.

I'm not going to go too deeply into these stories. If you want to, here's one. Here's another. And this third one is what brought the whole thing to my attention. I'm going to talk about that a little because Calumet City isn't that far from me, and this reporter's editor had a few important things to say.

The Fourth Estate is important to any society that at the very least pretends to be democratic, like our own, because they're the ones whose job it is to call out the powerful for their bullshit. If you're throwing journalists in jail or even so much as vaguely threatening them, you are not just standing in the way of democracy, you are also supporting fascism. By being a fascist.

So yeah. People who ticket and jail and threaten journalists for doing their job are lower than whale shit. It's odd that it needs to be said, but it needs to be said. Here is what the Calumet City editor said about it:

“You get used to it a little bit on the national scale, but now we’re seeing it in very small municipalities with mayors, and that’s a disturbing trend and we need to call it out when we see it,” Pugh told The Associated Press. “A public official ought to know better than to basically use a police force to try to intimidate a reporter who’s just doing his job.”

Which warms the cockles of my heart, by the way. It means there are still journalists actually doing journalism instead of the clickbait and the rushed stories you see plastered all over the internet. If politicians are threatening to throw you in jail for telling the truth about them, you're living life correctly. They're the ones who are fucked.

If you remember nothing else that I've said in these GF columns, please remember that one.

PS: Every day should be a day to say fuck you to the Man. Please retain this for your records.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #781: BACK ORDER

 I had a bit of a rough time of it lately, and it's yet another reason I fucking hate that I'm forced to go to CVS for my medications.

Two weeks ago I got my usual notification that CVS was trying to renew my prescription for Novolog, which is the fast-acting insulin I take to keep me alive three times a day. I replied with YES and, just in case, I made the request to my endocrinologist, too. On Wednesday, as I was running low on my last pen, I checked back in with the MyChart app, and the insulin had been sent over to CVS. So I called CVS's automated system and was advised that the prescription was still being processed. I figured that meant I'd have it by the next day.

The next day comes, and no dice. This time I talked to a live person only to find out that Novolog is on a national back order. And these CVS fucks didn't tell me about it.

If I was still allowed to go to my local pharmacy instead, they would have absolutely told me about this and offered alternatives. But no, now that I had only three shots worth of insulin left, FUCKING NOW I'm being told that it's on back order. If there was something that literally helped keep you alive, and you were told at the 11th hour that it was on national back order even though they already knew this, how reasonably would you respond?

I told my endocrinologist, and she sent an alternative to CVS. Surprise! On Friday I learned that my insurance wouldn't cover it. So now I had to get another alternative, and thankfully this one was covered. The problem: I had to wait until Monday to get it. FUCK.

So over the weekend I had to get creative. At least, I thought, I wouldn't get any low blood sugar surprises during this time. So I figured out when to use my final dose, which I saved for Saturday night as I like to treat myself a little if I don't have to work the next day. And then I had to take a few guesses on how Toujeo, my long-acting insulin for nighttime injections, would work using it during waking hours instead.

To paraphrase a great Knight of the Round Table in modern times, I chose wisely. The only Toujeo injection I fucked up was the one this morning. I didn't use enough and was in the 200s when I got home from work. But I finally have my insulin pens.

So I made a pizza from scratch tonight. Why not live a little? Celebrate.

Fucking back order . . .

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #780: FUCK THE DOOMED

 

I've been thinking about this a lot since this episode of Last Week Tonight aired about homeschooling. It's lengthy, but give it a watch. I think it might be more important than I originally thought.

We all know the real reason why politicians offer thoughts and prayers instead of meaningful help when it comes to school shootings. How many of them won their office with financial support from the NRA? But you'd think at the very least they would care about those kids getting gunned down. They can't all be that horrible, can they?

According to my theory, yes, they can be. Those politicians who don't give a fuck are mostly rightwing nutjobs who believe in God, country and family, supposedly in that order. Although they constantly put God and country on the same level, and family is kind of an afterthought. How many of these jerkoffs have been busted having affairs? Just for example. But they can't get it through their thick skulls that there *is* a separation of church and state whether they fucking like it or not, and they fucking well don't like it.

Since homeschooling isn't regulated much (or at all, really), that makes it a perfect way to indoctrinate their kids into their own way of thinking instead of just trusting it to the public schools. And homeschooling is a lot cheaper than Catholic school, which is where the rich rightwing scumbags send their kids.

Not many of them put their kids in public school, so why care about those who do? More to the point, why not make public school some kind of awful place that no one would want to send their kids to? So here's my theory, if you haven't figured it out yet. They want to make public schools useless and dangerous as a means of furthering their church = state agenda. Yes, make it so they can't teach kids books other than the Bible anymore. That will dumb down the children and ensure that they get nowhere in the world. And why not just turn psychos with guns loose at these schools? Make them so dangerous no one would want to go there only to learn from books that were banned a week previous, anyway.

I'm fairly certain these walking, breathing pieces of dogshit think that public school is evil and the very concept needs to be destroyed. I wouldn't be surprised if at least one, if not all, of them called public schools a socialist idea.

And they have no idea that the true evil can be found in their own mirror. Because fuck the doomed. Why not?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #779: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND THERE IT IS

 It didn't take the universe very long to self-correct itself. Now I'm back to my usual doom and gloom.

For the last month or so we haven't had heat in the house. It hasn't been too bad. Yes, it's cold, but it's not too bad. Yet. Even when it snowed on Halloween it was OK. I have a space heater in my bedroom, so when I'm there I'm nice and cozy, but when I'm in the bathroom or the kitchen, it's not that great. I got in the habit of skipping breakfast most days to avoid being in the kitchen for too long.

But winter is coming, and holy shit, I guess no one can really say that anymore without thinking of Game of Thrones. It's like when Spike said, "Who you gonna call?" on Buffy.

Anyway, cold weather is on its way, and there's no way we can get through the season without heat, so I called a guy today, and he confirmed for me what I've long suspected: the furnace is fucked. FUCKED. Somehow it got full of water, and a circuit board is fried, and of course a new one is going to cost a lot of fucking goddam money.

Thankfully there's a monthly payment plan, but at the same time I really don't want to deal with this. Chiefly among my reasons is the fact that I have no idea how long we're still going to be here. I could be paying for this fuckin' thing for no good reason at all if the bank decides to kick us out, say, in the spring. I'm getting bent over for this?

Goddammit. My brother mentioned there might be a warranty on the furnace. He says it's fairly new, but I don't remember us getting a new furnace a few years ago. I hope he's right. I don't really want to do this, but if I must, and I suspect I must, then I will.

So yes, doom and gloom. And I'm going to need some help. If you've ever been curious about my books, now's the time to buy. Check out my website for all the relevant links. And what the hell, I said I was going to stop editing stuff for other people, but do you need an editor? I'm flexible on prices. Let me know, and we can talk. Jesus God, maybe I should start an OnlyFans. Put on some hot pants and pick a corner on the Sleaze Strip . . .

If you buy Strip, Trail of Blood, Pavlov;s Bitches, 6669: Demon Porn, John Holmes Vampire Slayer, Dong of Frankenstein and Other Pornos You Can't Jerk It To, It Changes a Man and the Audible version of Poor Bastards and Rich Fucks, I will get paid the quickest. Next tier of swiftness is Tales of Questionable Taste, Poor Bastards and Rich Fucks, And Jesus Came Back and Blood. Coming in last are Tales of Unspeakable Taste and The Life and Times of Hieronymus Aloysis Ziege. If, you know, you're interested in knowing how fast you'd be able to help me.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #778: HOPE

 I don't live with a lot of hope. I find that hope almost always turns on you, and my philosophy is just to forget it. So I haven't felt it in a while. I go into everything with negative expectations, and I'm rarely disappointed.

So it's weird that I felt hope today. You know how I sometimes get low and talk about how unhappy I am at work? Yesterday I learned I might have an escape hatch. Today, after some close observation, I learned that the escape hatch is almost certain.

For half of my work day I sat in another department, watching how things go there, seeing the kinds of things they have to deal with. And I think I've found my next position at that job. It's not sales (finally), and there's nothing cutthroat about it. If this change happens I'll can stop being in attack mode all the fucking time. It'll be nice to go through one goddam workday without being burned out and watching out for knives with my back's name on them the whole time.

I will even get most of my Saturdays back, which means I CAN HAVE A WEEKEND AGAIN. For the first time since December 2019 I will know what a weekend feels like. The only thing is, they do rotating Saturdays, which means I'll have to work one a month. Considering the alternative, that's pretty fucking good.

Another possible drawback: I might have to work some days in Crystal Lake or Oswego, which are pretty far to go for me here in Elmhurst. For a second I thought I'd have to do that every day, but it looks like that just might be a once in a while kind of thing. I have a couple of brothers in Crystal Lake, and my second stepmom is in Oswego, so maybe that's not entirely bad.

My supervisor wants me to have the job. The supervisor I'd have wants me to have the job. We just have to clear it with the call center boss and the shop boss.

I've been floating on cloud nine all day, and I have not felt like that in many, many years. I feel like I've got a new lease on life, and I'm hoping with everything I've got that I get this new position. I've had a spectacularly bad run of luck for more than ten years at this point. It's Verrill luck. Always in, always bad. But this might just be the thing to finally turn all that shit around.

Fingers crossed.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #777: METHUSELAH

 

How long would you say fish live? When I was a kid I always had an aquarium, and I'd say the oldest fish I ever had only lasted a few years. Maybe three? Shortest lived were always carnival goldfish, of course, but I'd be shocked to learn any fish could live longer than ten years.

Then, every once in a while, you learn about a shark in the wild that has lived for hundreds of years. And then there's Methuselah, pictured above. She's an Australian lungfish, and she's probably around 93 years old, which makes her the oldest living aquarium fish. Because her species hasn't evolved in 100 million years, she's considered a "living fossil." Meaning, by studying her we can have some insight into prehistoric life.

For example, the species is generally considered to be the first to have developed a spine in history. And like the name suggests, they can breathe oxygen. One source says it's "the closest living relative to the first fish that crawled out of the sea." It might even be possible that we are descended from them, if that is the case.

I can't help but think about super religious people who still, to this day, are offended at the very idea that we evolved from monkeys. I always think about how they would react when they learned that monkeys possibly evolved from lungfish, and that all creatures (including us) evolved from bacteria.

Methuselah lives at the Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco and has been there since 1938. Kind of weird to think of it that way. When she arrived the US was in the middle of the worst depression in its history. Nazis were just getting revved up with jerkoff fantasies of world domination. Orson Welles did War of the Worlds that year. The minimum wage was born that year. Hell, that was the year the ballpoint pen was invented. Methuselah is older than the fucking ballpoint pen and the US minimum wage.

But then again, well, you know the unofficial motto of Goodnight, Fuckers. You gonna make me say it?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #776: TUTANKHAMEN AND EGYPTOLOGY

 Technically the entire name of the book is Biblical and Oriental Series: Tutankhamen and Egyptology. It was published in 1923 and is so difficult to find that not even Google will help me find an image of it. I found an entry on Amazon, but they don't have a copy and so they don't have a cover image. I'm too lazy, and it's too late for me to take a picture with my phone and import it to my laptop, so you'll have to pretend that I posted a picture of a book above this paragraph that is greenish blue and simply says the title and the word Mercer on it. Not sure if Mercer is the author or the publisher. Once again, Google foiled my GF research.

The reason I bring up this book is because it belongs to the Elmhurst Public Library, but for many decades between them purchasing it and now, it vanished. Someone checked it out in 1945 and just didn't return it. I'm sure the guy just forgot about it, and after time it became part of his own library because the book was just returned this summer with a note: "This book was recently discovered in my father's bookcase. With regrets for its long overdue status."

That's 78 fucking years late. I can't even imagine what the late fee would be. I worked there for almost 10 years, and in my time it was ten cents a day . . . until you reached a certain point that you went on a list. When we didn't have much to do, they had us call people on this list in an attempt to get the book (or movie or magazine or whatever) back. If we still didn't get it back, we just charged them for the book. If they came back to use the library again, they couldn't check anything else out until they either returned the book and paid the late fee or simply paid to replace the book. So something like this would not have happened during my time. I was thinking about calculating what that late fee might be for this book, but I don't have the date it was checked out, and I don't know the charge from back then or when the charges changed, etc. It would be an exercise in futility. But I am pretty curious. Almost curious enough to waste a reference librarian's time to find out. Earlier today I came pretty close to doing just that.

But 78 years isn't all that bad in the big picture. Here Google was very helpful because there are many instances of books being returned late all over the world, and sometimes a century or more has passed. Since I am curious as all fuck, I decided to find out what was the most overdue book in known history.

Unfortunately I couldn't find out what the title of the book was. All I know is that it's a history book, and it's written in German. It was borrowed from the Sidney Sussex College library in Cambridge back in 1667 or 1668 by Col. Robert Walpole. Not the first prime minster of Great Britain. No, this was Sir Robert Walpole's father. It was not returned until it was discovered in 1956! That makes it around 287 years overdue! The guy who found it was putting together a biography of Walpole, so I figure his descendants gave the author access to Walpole's library, where he found the book and realized, holy shit, this belongs to the college library! Weird to think that a guy doing research just stumbled upon something that was then enshrined in the Guinness Book of World Records.

The EPL eliminated late fees a few years back, so nothing is owed, but still. I wonder what they'll do with the book now. I doubt it's back in circulation. Perhaps they'll bring it to the historical museum at the Glos mansion. Which, by the way, was where the library started out life in a back room in 1916.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #775: MY STATEMENT ON WAR

 28.551 days. That comes out to 78.2-ish years. That's how long it's been since WWII ended. I guess we've forgotten what that kind of thing is like, because we're all chomping at the bit to start WWIII. And it will surely be an ignoble war. It's fairly ignoble in its gestation right now. So I thought I'd post my statement on any and all wars. Thankfully Hawkeye Pierce already said it back in the 'Seventies, so I'm just going to quote him:

Any and all wars. The noblest war in living memory was, indeed, WWII, and I am including that in my statement. How many innocent lives have already been lost in Russia vs. Ukraine? Hamas vs. Israel? And the death toll is only going to skyrocket because . . . I promised myself I wasn't going to rant. So I'm not. I'm going to leave it at that for now.

Goodnight, fuckers.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #774: WITHOUT A CARE IN THE WORLD FOR MY BALLS

 People who work in hospitals clearly don't have a care in the world for my balls. I'm not going to think about the catheter and their lack of care for my dick because that's obvious, but my balls? They love throwing stuff on my balls.

Whenever I get an X-ray that might expose my balls to radiation, they toss--AND I MEAN TOSS--a lead sack on my balls. They're kind of heavy, and I always get that one split second of OH SHIT, waiting for the pain to start, my breath to vanish and my body to curl in on itself because that's all you get when you're kicked in the nuts. Just that split second. Thankfully the lead sack is not as bad as a kick to the jewels, but still.

And then there are the times I have to go in for a surgery or a procedure. When all I'm wearing is my gown and the blanket over me, they'll toss all sorts of stuff on my crotch. Never my chest or my belly. Always in the dick and balls region. And I'm talking about FUCKING NEEDLES. That's right, the IV needle they're about to put in my arm or have just taken out of my arm. And the nurses' fingers always find a way to hit one of my testicles when they're reaching for something. It's not enough to hurt like the aforementioned kick, but it's mighty uncomfortable, and it does take your breath away, at least for a few seconds. And they just love rooting through all the shit they just put on my balls. Like perhaps they lost one of the tubes or, even worse, the FUCKING NEEDLE. I think it's only a matter of time before someone goes to grab something and pinches my 'nads instead.

It would be nice if they just put the stuff next to me. I'm a wide load, but I don't take up the bed from edge to edge. Fuckin' hell.

No, Negan, no. It doesn't tickle my balls. More like a finger flick to my balls. If I'm going with a balls quote, though, I'd much prefer it be . . .

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #773: SOMEONE CHECK AND SEE IF HELL FROZE OVER

Mitch McConnell, 2023 (colorized)

 I'm a little disappointed with today for two reasons. The first is, I've been disabused of the hope I feel knowing that Mitch McConnell's remaining life is short. I guess the two freezes he suffered recently weren't bad enough to incapacitate him because he's up to his ol' bullshit hardcore today.

Dick Durbin mentioned earlier this week that he was going to subpoena two billionaires and a judicial activist so they can look into several large gifts given to justices of the Supreme Court. Which is very important, by the way, considering the unconscionable graft committed by that bench. But McConnell has swooped in, saying that it's "inappropriate." Fellow scumbag Lindsey Graham added that he thinks there might be "constitutional issues" with such subpoenas. In other words, WE MUST NOT INVESTIGATE GRAFT ON THE SUPREME COURT. The billionaires might get their feelings hurt, and we wouldn't want that, now, would we?

The other reason? Oh yeah. This one gets a little tricky because, and I never thought I'd ever say this, but Josh Hawley said something I agree with.

Yes, now would be a good time to check and see if Hell is a winter wonderland.

Hawley introduced a bill called the Ending Corporate Influence on Elections Act, which is exactly what it sounds like. In regards to corporate donations made to candidates, Hawley said, "I think it's warping our politics, and I see no reason for conservatives to defend it. It's wrong as a matter of the original meaning of the Constitution. It's bad for our elections. It's bad for our voters. And I just think on principle, we ought to be concerned."

Is this really Josh Hawley? As in, the fucking coward who helped foment an insurrection and then ran in sheer terror of said insurrection? I'm kind of surprised that something this intelligent came from that asshole.

He's right. Corporate meddling in our elections has led to the situation we're in right now. Corporations must be banned from politics. Period. End of sentence. No further notes.

So of course Mitch Fucking McConnell swooped down on that, too. He held a special meeting for those conservatives Hawley mentioned, including Hawley himself. McConnell forbade them from signing the bill, and then he read off a list of those politicians who won their offices with the corporate donations that Hawley is talking about. And then McConnell twisted the knife. Josh Hawley's name was on that list. $20M in corporate donations from McConnell's own personal super-PAC.

I don't know why Hawley decided to do this. It makes no sense for him unless he's willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good of the country, and from a coward like him, I find that very unlikely. Why did he choose now to grow a pair? Is he sick? Does he have a terminal illness, and this is the way he takes his suckass colleagues down with him?

I don't know. I'm confused, which is not my natural state. I'll just have to watch this unfold with the rest of you fuckers.

Dammit.