GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #835: THE BEST COMIC BOOK OF THE WEEK IS . . .

 . . . all of my books. They were great, each and every one of them. And I am so happy to have something other than my misery to talk about, I'm going to do an old school cool-shit type GF tonight. If you weren't with me back in the day, every Thursday I would post a Cool Shit talking about my favorite comics of the week. There are spoilers, as this is not a review series. It's just me talking about cool shit. So let's start!

JAMES BOND 007 #4: Shockingly enough the least excited I was for a book this week was for a Garth Ennis book. That is very much unlike me. I like in this book that Bond mentions that M is not the M that's always been with us, but that people fill in the role. He's distrustful of the current M. He currently trusts only Moneypenny because he's known her the longest. He's just returned from space and will soon be working with Felix again in the very near future.

TRANSFORMERS #7: Starscream is one of my favorite Transformers. He's a weasel. He will do anything to be in charge of the Decepticons, and curiously he actually is their leader in this new series. Megatron has yet to show his face in this series, although he's depicted in another as out of working order. How did he get that way? Did Starscream have something to do with it? I'm sure we'll find out. But Soundwave just challenged Starscream's leadership. Starscream is at his best when he's using words as weapons, but Soundwave much prefers to use weapons as weapons, and he's not above cheating. It reminded me a little of how Roland the Gunslinger bested Cort in the Dark Tower series. While it seems Image is not afraid to kill some Transformers, I wouldn't count Starscream out yet. I'm sure he'll be back.

COBRA COMMANDER #4: Cobra Commander is a lot like Starscream, and not just because the two characters were voiced by the same actor back in the 'Eighties. I'm glad that Nemesis Enforcer is around and beating the mortal shit out of the Dreadnoks, but the best part of this issue was Cobra Commander's sudden realization that he wasn't the main character of his own book. Like Starscream, he's got tricks up his sleeve. In a fair fight there is no way he'd be able to defeat NE. Luckily he's very adept at cheating. I think the next issue is the last. Too bad. I'm very much enjoying this one.

QUICK STOPS VOL 2 #4: I never thought I'd need to hear an origin story for Mooby, but goddam! I'm very happy this exists. In the final part of the story Kevin Smith ratchets up the action to a ridiculous level. I never thought I'd see Jay beat the daylights out of an elderly naked Satanist lady wearing a Mooby golden calf mask, but that's the world I currently live in. (I didn't expect Silent Bob to snap a selfie with her after, either. He's a man of few words, and his actions speak volumes.) It's good to see that the Quick Stop has a plaque commemorating Dante Hicks, but in pure Randal fashion, it's at the coffee station with a sign declaring Dante *was* supposed to be here today. This is probably the last issue, but I'm hoping for a volume 3.

HELLBLAZER: DEAD IN AMERICA #4: I don't talk about it often, but I'm fully on board with this new incarnation of Hellblazer. It feels like the Vertigo Hellblazer of old. It's more in tune with Jamie Delano's version of Constantine rather than Ennis's. There's even a nod to the original series in this issue. John is still a walking dead man, but it seems he's finally got Swamp Thing on the same page with him. It was good to see ol' Con-job pulling a scam on people, and to have it not work out for him? It was kind of funny. What I very much liked was how the people he was scamming, who had covered up the rape and murder of a teenage girl by the high school football team, got their comeuppance when they all were cursed to relive her final moments for hours in one night. It's not often that John does something good. Usually it's an accident while doing something very self-centered, but this was good work.

I feel a lot better for having written this one. It reminded me what fun was like, and fun has been running very low around here. This will be the last GF for a while, now that I'm at 835, which was my goal. Hopefully my life will stop sucking so much soon, and I can get back to having fun. Living with overwhelming stress 24/7--and I mean 24/7, I can't even escape from it in my dreams--is not helpful and needs to stop ASAP.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #834: I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO CALL THIS ONE

 I'm fucking exhausted. It's not just the sickness thing, although that's a huge part of it. Imagine feeling at your absolute lowest, and a doctor tells you that you will never feel like this again if you remove one specific thing from your life. You remove that specific thing, and it doesn't work. You feel at your worst time and time again, and it doesn't seem to stop. You'd feel betrayed, wouldn't you?

I know medical science doesn't know everything, and that there are many mysteries that may never get solved. But I'm hurting. I feel betrayed. I trusted them with this thing, and they just take a look at me, go whoopsy, and let's move on.

I can't move on. There's so much more going on in my life right now, and I usually tell you everything. There are a few things I've been holding back on. Two, to be specific. One of them I will never tell you about. The other? I almost decided to write about that tonight. But it's unspeakable, even for me. I can't. Not yet, at least.

It took all my ability to not cry on my drive home from work. That's very unusual for me because up until maybe five years ago, I thought I'd lost the ability to cry. The last time I cried was when I was a child.

It was pretty easy to stop me back then. My stepfather gave me a sharp crack across the face and said, "Boys don't cry." And he stared at me, like he was imposing his will on me. And he was.

Much to my surprise I found myself crying when my mom died. I cried when my dad died. I cried when my grandparents died. And now it seems like it's in my soul again. I can watch something sad or harrowing, and I can feel my eyes tear up. But to suddenly need to cry while I was driving? That was out of the fucking blue for me. And then for me to force myself not to cry? It was like feeling that slap across the face again from across the decades. I felt chastised.

Men are told they have to be a certain way, or they're not men. For the record, I recognize that this is the same for women and nonbinary people, too, but I can only speak of my own personal experience. The indoctrination begins almost at birth when they give you a blue blanket and talk about how one day all the ladies will swoon at your feet. That's taking a lot for granted. Hell, these days it starts with the gender reveal. Gotta have your blue smoke or your pink balloons or what have you, or you think you're not going to be a caring parent.

We focus too much on details. Can't we just be happy that we have a healthy baby? We have to foist gender norms on them before they even know what the earth's air tastes like?

Be a man. Love sports. Fuck all the girls. It's OK if they're not on the same page with you. Bully them until they'll put your dick in their mouth. It's consensual that way. But even if you go beyond that, it's OK. It's just boys roughhousing. Besides, she shouldn't have dressed that way. Gives men all sorts of ideas . . .

But you'd better want your dick in that woman's mouth. If you like other men? You're not a man.

I did not like all the kinds of things men are supposed to like. I always found comfort in books and playing with my toys. Making up my own stories. Getting lost in my thoughts. But I also had my cousin, Erik, so I was able to pretend to like that other stuff by modeling myself after him. It kept my stepfather off my back, and he was the one who wanted me to be a man.

It was odd. My father accepted my ways as manly, or at least boyish, and he didn't seem concerned with beating the shit out of me so I'd fit some kind of mold. Dad was always easy-going, and he often found it was more important to be funny than anything else, sometimes to his own detriment. I'll bet that sounds pretty familiar to a lot of people who know what I value more than most things, sometimes to my own detriment.

Yet despite that, my stepfather was the stronger influence because he had boots on the ground at all times. And I don't like admitting this part much, but some of the blame does go to my grandfather. He wanted to make sure I was a man who liked manly things. He didn't want to beat me into it, but he shamed me often. He'd take me out to ballgames, which I found as an adult weren't that bad, especially if you had whiskey with you. He got me a subscription to Playboy when I turned 18, I think because he was afraid I was gay. Gramps, too, used to say, "Boys don't cry."

I think I would have been a lot better off if my stepfather had accidentally killed me during a beating. I wouldn't have grown up into this thing that feels like the world is slipping away constantly, and I'm losing all of my battles, and I'm not even having fun making up my own stories anymore, and that was the one thing that kept me alive and sane when I was a kid.

I've spent my life trying to just get by. I was advised as a very young boy that it was best to bottle your shit up. Keep bottling it up until it becomes unbearable, then take it out on some poor prick. His offense doesn't have to be that bad, just enough to break the camel's back. And when it's done, go back to bottling it up until next time. I do bottle a lot of things up. I completely get it when Bruce Banner says, "I'm always angry." Because I fucking am. The world is unfair. I've known that longer than most people I grew up with. But as an adult I've always fought for the world to be fair. For people to stop taking advantage of others. Every time you see me rant and rave about the dipshits and fuckfaces taking advantage of us all, that's me trying to bring some balance to the world. I can't make the changes. I can only make people aware. If enough of us are aware, maybe we can gang up on the bastards.

But I can't lash out. I can't take it out on some poor prick. Because I know what I'm like when the rage has taken me over. Instead I self-immolate. I take it out on myself, because if I took it out on someone else, I'm certain I would go to prison for a very long time, and rightfully so.

And that's a man's greatest achievement, isn't it? Destroy yourself before someone else has the chance to. As much as I tried to avoid the manly lessons, I adopted the most horrifying one of them all.

Doesn't it say something that the manliest man of my youth, Arnold Swarzenegger, is on a mission to help young men find real lessons instead of the toxic bullshit that's been handed down for centuries?

I listen to him. I try. I want to be a better person, but holy fuck, I got a raw deal nearly from the start. There's shit in the DNA of my mind that will never come out, no matter how much I twist and turn the knot. I don't think Alexander the Great could cut this fucking thing.

We do so much damage to our children in the name of wanting them to be good people that we will never understand our own destructive natures. Every time I see some asshole saying something stupid on TV or, more likely, in the House of Representatives, I remind myself that they were children once. That someone visited this horror on them, and they have no idea how bad their problem is. They think they're normal. They think it's OK to boobytrap the Rio Grande, and when some kid gets hurt or even killed, fuck 'em. Because they're not Americans, dammit. Only Americans are people.

I think I've worn myself out. I'm going to post one more GF before my hiatus. It will probably be on Thursday, and I'm going to try to not be my own subject. It seems like every time I write something these days it's about me and my problems. I did some good tonight. I no longer feel the despair I started with. I feel like I made a few good points to myself, things to work on. But something's got to give. I can't see myself continuing like this for another ten, twenty, thirty years. I hope I'll find a way to shed this thing (and the two others I won't mention). It would be nice to make it to 50 without burning out like a supernova.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #833: SPINAL INJECTIONS

 Today was my fourth and hopefully final spinal injection. The others were fairly easy because they knocked me out for the procedure. But not today. I got to enjoy the sensation of several needles penetrating my spine this morning.

They gave me some local on my back. That wasn't very pleasant, but it did numb me. That didn't stop me from feeling the needles, though. I could feel the pressure of them going in, but when they injected the steroids I felt a burn that was far from pleasant.

But it's over. The procedures and surgeries are finally over. I no longer have to worry about this shit. It was rough, but now I can move on with my life.

At least until the next fucking thing comes along. Remember, for my body it's a rule. When one thing gets resolved, another thing shows its ugly face. So who knows how long I'll get to enjoy the feeling of not worrying about that shit before the next thing arrives?

My heart rate was up today, so they gave me Valium to calm down. I've never taken that before. It made me feel like a ghost of myself. You know how when you've been drinking all night in a hotel room (for reasons, I tell you, reasons), and when you step out into the next day you're blinded by the sun? That's how I felt when I left the hospital today. It was weird not being hungover in that moment.

I've got too many personal battles to fight. I'm exhausted, and it's starting to look like I might as well give up, but the success of my spinal injections today has bolstered my will to fight. I would give anything to have ordinary fucking problems. I remember what that was like, what, fifteen years ago? I told a friend I would give both balls and three inches of my dick to never suffer from my stomach illness again, and I fucking mean it.

I am so goddam tired.

All right, I'll have to figure out how to get back to my numbering scheme. I might do another GF tomorrow. I don't know. Or I'll just do two next week. We'll see.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #832: BREAKING POINT

 This fucking sickness is back yet again. I spent yesterday and today puking my guts out, and when I ran out of guts, I continued to dry heave. I think it's over. For now. But I'm weak and exhausted.

And I'm reaching my breaking point.

The one and only reason I quit drinking was so I would never feel like this again. So far this year, it's almost all I've felt. If I'm going to feel like fucking garbage anyway, why not drink? Maybe if I did, it would give the doctors reason enough to admit me and at least fucking try to figure out what's wrong with me. When I was a boozer they admitted me constantly and said, hey, quit drinking and you'll never feel like this again. I want to see those same fucking doctors and demand to know why they lied to me. Why they used Occam's Razor too fucking freely. Hey, look at that. He's a drinker. If he stops, he won't feel like this anymore. BULLSHIT.

I've been fucking dancing on that particular razor's edge for more than a decade. What in the fucking fuck?

I'm pissed. I'm demoralized. I can feel myself breaking. I'm almost there. I think one more bad day will tip me over.

I'm so fucking angry that I don't think I can go to sleep after writing this. But I'm going to give it a try. Hopefully tomorrow won't bring a fresh batch of horrors, but knowing my life? Right.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #831: ECLIPSE

 I wasn't really planning on watching the eclipse. It was supposed to happen right after I returned from lunch. But then the boss of the call center came around handing out eclipse glasses. I still wasn't sold on it. I'd seen these things before. Where I am it wouldn't even be a total eclipse. There would still be a sliver of sun on one edge when the moon moved by.

But I looked out the window and saw how dark it had become. I'd just gotten back from lunch, and they were letting us go outside for a few minutes. I figured, anything to get away from the phones for a bit. We were super busy today.

I went outside, donned the glasses, and looked up. My field of vision was pitch black except for that golden sliver. It seems I'd come out at just the right time. I saw the sun as covered as it was going to get. I heard someone say that it wasn't going to happen again for another 20 years, and I realized that I might not be alive for the next one. Life is always precarious for me, it seems, and the likelihood of me making it to 65 is pretty low.

So I watched the eclipse for a few minutes, and it felt a little more important than it had earlier in the day. I wondered what it must have been like for people living in a pre-science era during an eclipse. Maybe they knew it happened from time to time. It's a weird world. Darkness at noon isn't too out of the ordinary. But what about the first humans to ever see an eclipse? That must have scared the ever-lovin' shit out of them.

But in this modern era we know exactly when an eclipse will happen. No soothsayers need apply. The universe is like clockwork. A place for everything and everything in its place.

Even me. As I looked up at the sliver I had an odd feeling that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I'm not one for destiny, but it felt like I was a part of a much bigger scheme of things. And I was. How long have humans gazed up in wonder at eclipses? Millennia? I leaned back against the outside wall of the building and tried to see the moon moving. Given enough time I'm sure I could have, but I had to get back to work.

I took the glasses off and went back inside. To the busy phones. To the workday that is, essentially, the same cycle day in and day out, as predictable as a, well, you know.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #830: TOUGH GUYS

 

This is not a question that would probably come up in 2024, but if you were to ask me what my favorite Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas movie is, I would not say Gunfight at the OK Corral, which would probably surprise you. Although I love that movie, my heart belongs to Tough Guys. Two elderly bank robbers get out of prison after decades and decide to pull one last heist: rob the train they got busted robbing their last time out. What good timing! Because that train is about to be retired. And an elderly hitman who took the contract on these two guys comes out of retirement himself to hunt them down. This guy, by the way, is played wonderfully by a myopic Eli Wallach.

I'm a big fan of stories about old people trying to do something they used to do a lot in their youth but can no longer reasonably expect to do. Closely related to this kind of story is the kind where young people underestimate old people who then do something horrible to surprise the fuck out of the youngsters.

But I'm bringing up Tough Guys because there's a real life "tough guy" in the news.

71-year-old Bruce Edward Bell

Bell was arrested for robbing a bank recently. It's pretty impressive, considering how he's 71 years old. He's a lifelong bank robber who has been inside four times previously and did a cumulative 40 years behind bars. He just got out of prison last year, and what does he do?

OK, yeah, he robbed a bank at gunpoint. Sure, that's no laughing matter, except as I read the news story I knew instinctively that this guy isn't a killer. Big surprise, the gun in question turned out to be fake. So it's not as tense a news story as one would think. No one got hurt. The money was recovered. Not that it should matter about that last one. It was a little more than sixty grand, which is easily covered by the FDIC, so not even the corporate scum running the bank would feel the hit if it came to it.

But Bell wasn't all that good at bank robbing. He got away with the money only to be chased down and arrested. Perhaps simply leaving the bank and getting into his car to drive away was a bad exit strategy. But you gotta give him one thing: he's consistent.

I don't imagine they'll be letting him out of prison again. Typically bank robbery is punished with up to 20 years, but I'm sure the fact that this is his fifth time doing this will ensure that he gets stuck with the full 20, no parole. But let's say he survives the sentence. It's not likely, but it's possible. He would be a free man at 91.

You know what I want to know. Maybe I'll be around for that day so I can find out. If I'm still writing GF columns at the age of 65, I'll let you know how it works out . . .

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #829: AN OPEN LETTER TO MOONSTONE BOOKS

 

Dear Moonstone Books,

I've been reading your Kolchak comics for as long as you've been putting them out. Also, my eternal thanks for reprinting The Kolchak Papers by Jeff Rice, a book I'd tried to find for years before you brought it out again, and I found it at a comics convention. I've read your anthologies, and if you have Kolchak in a Double Shot, I get that, too.

I'm familiar with your other properties, but I'm a Kolchak superfan. I loved the two movies and the show. I did not like the remake of the show, which I skipped after watching that abortion of a first episode. I see you also publish Sherlock Holmes stories, and I've read all the originals by Doyle.

I say all of this to lighten the blow, because while I enjoy reading your books, I find the editing to be absolutely atrocious. It's to the point where I wonder if you even have an editor. For a professional publisher, you seem to be OK with letting typos run wild, and your authors don't seem to have much guidance when it comes to the content. The stories are great. The execution? Not so much.

The reason for this open letter is because I just finished reading Kolchak: The Night Stalker: Dead Reckoning by Eric Fein. An excellent story, but there are so many problems with the book that the story is almost lost in the mess. I'd review this on Amazon or Goodreads, but you don't seem to have much of an interest in having this book (or many others) listed there. I have to believe one of two things. Either you don't have an editor (or an editor worth their salt), or you think that fans of your properties will buy anything, that the content doesn't matter. I'd much rather believe the first, but the longer I live, the more I realize that certain fandoms will buy anything in that fandom even if it sucks. Evan Dorkin has a strip in which a Batman fanatic will buy any Batman book, even one that comes with anthrax, because "gotta have my Batman."

First of all, letting a title like "Dead Reckoning" out into the wild is extraordinarily lazy. Especially since it doesn't seem to mean anything. Like "Blood Moon." How many things are called Blood Moon? It transcends the idea of stereotypical horror.

Also, why are you having Vincenzo rabidly siding with the Dispatch's publisher? Vincenzo is a newsman first and foremost. He understands the business. He knows the publisher is the boss, and what they say goes, but he has the desire to get to the truth just like Kolchak does. It's one thing when Vincenzo is yelling at Kolchak over writing an article about, say, vampires, but it's another when a legitimate news story is getting a cover up by authorities to the point where he has to kill said story. He should be commiserating with Kolchak on that one, not yelling at him. I appreciate that you had Vincenzo send Kolchak off with one purpose and very subtly telling Kolchak to do something else. That was good.

I don't want to go off too much on the story because I thoroughly enjoyed it, but the way it's told is just so wrong. Do you want readers to be pulled out of the story by something stupid like a typo? Or a sentence that doesn't make sense until you realize a word or two are missing?

Which brings me to the point of this open letter. HIRE ME AS YOUR EDITOR. My passion is for Kolchak, but I'll edit all your properties. I'm an amazing editor, if I don't say so myself. A typo or two might still get through. I find that in my own work I usually have a couple that escape my attention. Compared to the countless legions I encountered in just this one book? If you don't believe me, perhaps the words of another editor will convince you. Just read the first paragraph here, and you'll see that I'm not just delusional. I've edited books for StrangeHouse and New Kink and Rooster Republic Press. That doesn't even count my own books. Editors I've worked with don't have to take me to task for spelling, grammar, etc. I can fix that for your books. And I'm more than just a line editor. I can actually help authors shape their books into stronger fiction. I don't want to shit talk Eric Fein. I'm sure he's a good guy, but he often overcomplicates his sentences, which is another thing I see often in your books.

Best of all, I'm local. I live in Elmhurst, 45 minutes away from Lockport. If you need me in the office, I can be there. All I ask is a decent wage. $70K per year would be ideal, but I'm open to negotiations. It's a lot of money, but I'm worth it.

Think about it. You can reach me at tabardinnedgewoodent@yahoo.com. Oh yeah, I used to be an editor and publisher of my own fiction magazine, Tabard Inn: Tales of Questionable Taste, published by Edgewood Entertainment. See? I can help. I want to read a Moonstone Kolchak adventure free of errors, and if that means I have to do it myself, I'm fully willing to do that.

Best wishes,

John Bruni

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #828: ME AND THE HISTORY CHANNEL

 

As many of you know I'm a huge fan of history. So you'd think the History Channel would be right up my alley. And it was, kind of. And then it started morphing into something weird, like how the Learning Channel doesn't do educational shows.

I happened upon an issue of the History Channel Magazine, and it was so good I became a lifetime member of the History Channel Club. I got some neat things for free, including a Civil War chess set, and I was supposed to get every issue of the magazine for the rest of my life. I loved those issues. They were chockful of excellent articles going into depth on historical events. I learned so goddam much from that magazine. It was the high point of my relationship with the brand.

Because soon the only history you could get was WWII history, almost always stuff about Hitler and Nazis. And you had to tune in late at night because during they day they ran tabloid bullshit. 

You know exactly what I mean by tabloid bullshit.

I enjoy stupid stories about aliens, but I don't want to get that through a venue that calls itself the History Channel. I want stories about history. Actual history. From actual historians.

And then the magazine changed, too. It became Warrior and was exclusively about war history. I'm interested in war history, too, but I want more than just that. And it seemed that the new magazine wasn't interested in non-American wars. Every time I got the issue I flipped to the TOC to see if there was anything interesting. There almost never was. When Warrior stopped showing up in my mailbox I did not bother trying to find out what happened to my "lifetime subscription."

That was the last straw. I ended my relationship with the History Channel then and there. I haven't looked back since.

Except . . .

When I'm cleaning up around the house I like to play something in the background. It's helpful if it's educational, in particular about history. On Paramount+ I found a show called 10 Things You Don't Know About.

I have not seen any episodes hosted by Henry Rollins

Often times I stopped what I was doing while host David Eisenbach told me stuff that I really didn't know about. I know more about unusual history than almost everyone I know, and I still didn't know 75% of this. I only watched the first season, as the second was not yet available. Apparently they got Henry Rollins to take over for Eisenbach. Not sure why. I like Rollins, but Eisenbach was a great host. Maybe a bit unkempt, and he always looked a little hungover, but he knew his shit.

It surprised me to learn that this is an actual show on the History Channel. Kind of. It's on something called H2. Maybe it's like when MTV invented an all music channel to explain to people where the music videos went. What, real history? Oh. You can get that on H2. You sure you don't want 100% true facts about bigfoot and aliens? We probably got some Hitler stuff around here somewhere. He wanted an army of werewolves, you know.

I highly recommend that show. I hope they post season 2 eventually. I'll miss Eisenbach, but Henry Rollins is probably an awesome host.

AH-AH-AH! Stop right there. I know exactly what you were about to bring up.

I'm pretty sure Rollins was not thrilled to be there for Night Visions. Every time they brought him out to do his Serling schtick he was always terse and monotone, like he knew it was just a job and he was there for the paycheck. I was excited for Night Visions. I was let down. I stuck around because I wanted it to be good, but that's a lesson I've learned and have not repeated for a very long time.

If you want to know what a real shitshow Night Visions was, you should hunt down Thomas F. Monteleone's Mothers and Fathers Italian Association piece on how they fucked him over for his episode, "Hate Puppet." Monteleone was outed not too long ago for being a terrible human being, so don't pay to read it. Find it online somewhere. Or buy a used copy of the issue of Cemetery Dance in which it appeared (as that way the money won't reach him). It's a fucked up story. Too bad. William Atherton is in that one, and he was good with what he was given. He's always great. He was good as the mayor in the new Ghostbusters.

At any rate, maybe there's hope for the History Channel after all. I just won't hold my breath.

PS: Eisenbach apparently teamed up with Larry Flynt for a book called One Nation Under Sex! So I guess I have to track that down now. Here's your extra credit: read this interview with Eisenbach about this book here. I think you'll find it very interesting.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #827: IN THE BEFORE TIME

 Today was not just a shitshow at work. It was a shitfest. The first two hours were so goddam miserable I considered just walking out of the office and never returning. A lot of it had to do with technical issues, and while I was balls deep in this fucking garbage I couldn't help but think, my job would be a lot more annoying without this tech.

How did people do my job back before the internet? I have a bit of an idea, since I was a parts driver for the City of Elmhurst during the infancy of the internet. When you went into a parts store back then they usually had one counter dedicated to the Big Book, which was really a series of books held together in one gigantic binder. They could find just about any part in there, but they had to go the long way. The only way. They had to flip through pages.

So I imagine it would have been somewhat like that. It would also have to be in person, not over the phone. While it's a little more awkward to tell a customer that the job they want is going to cost more than they expected in person, at least I wouldn't be taking customers back to back to back. There are very few states in the country we don't work in, so a majority of people I talk to aren't even from the Chicagoland area, but without the tech? They'd probably have to bring their car to a shop to get it looked at. There is no way I would be required to talk to 100 people a day in a situation like that. I envision a lot of sitting around and waiting.

But I'm sure there would also be calls. How could I know what our vendors have without the internet? Call around and see. That would be fucking annoying, but in the grand scheme of things? It's a trade-off I'd be OK with.

I'd probably have to dress up, or they'd put me in a uniform, but what the hell. It wouldn't be the first time someone made me do that to earn a living. I doubt I'd have a 200/month quota, either. I might talk to 200 people in a month in pre-internet days. So maybe I wouldn't have to work commission. There are positives and negatives to that, but again, I can live with it.

Yeah, I'm daydreaming about not having to work this sales job anymore. My opportunity to escape vanished, but I might have a new opportunity soon. On the plus side it's strictly customer service, which is a walk in the park for me. The pay would be more than the base I make now. Not much, but it would be worth it, I think. The only problem is, it's in Schaumburg. I've worked there before. For almost 10 years. I can make the drive, but it sucks donkeyballs. The one good thing about working in Elmhurst is that if I get sick it's a 15 minute drive home. Holding in puke for 45 minutes to an hour would not go well.

I need this. My life will be so much better if I get it. Wish me luck.

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Hey, I've got a new book out! Eye Cutter is now available on Amazon on Kindle and in print! Check it out, and let me know what you think!

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #826: JUST DIE ALREADY

 My teeth have never been that great. It's a shame I didn't get more of me from Dad because he had a perfect set of choppers. Mom? Not so much. Neither did Grandma, and I definitely got my teeth from her. I found an old picture of her before she got dentures, and I can see my teeth in her mouth. Space between the front teeth and all.

Considering everything I've been through it's kind of surprising that I'm only down three teeth, and one of them was a wisdom tooth. All four grew in straight, so I never needed them removed. The two other teeth I lost I managed to replace with implants. One of them is going bad on me, which my dentist says is supposed to be impossible after having been in my mouth for so many years. Because my luck is shit luck, I can only assume that it's going to come out in the next couple of years, and I'll wind up with a bridge instead.

Dentistry really has come a long way over the years. Hell, since I was a kid! Everything changed. It makes me wonder what it must have been like losing teeth before all this technology. Dentures go back a long ways, but that was once state of the art tech in the field. What about people who lived before dentures? They just had to suck it up?

And then I thought about the life expectancy of cavemen, which I'd heard was 40 years old as a child. Looks like that number is wrong. 33 was the average life span of the caveman. Holy shit. Could you imagine being ancient at the age of 33?

But that is around the time when people start losing their teeth. All things considered I think tooth loss is nature's way of saying fuck you. You're getting older, so the end is near. Good luck eating without teeth, asshole. Just die already.

I know nature can grow teeth back. We can do it when we're kids. Rats have to keep gnawing on things or their teeth will get too big. Why can't we have a third set as we age? Because nature wants us out of the way for the next generation. We just confounded nature with science, and now we're living longer than we were meant to.

These are the kinds of thoughts I have when I'm trying to fall asleep. It's probably all bullshit, but what the hell. It's interesting to at least consider.

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Eye Cutter is finally available! I haven't linked to it on my social media, and I'm planning on announcing it in my newsletter tomorrow, so if you wandered over here and saw this, please don't tell anyone yet. But feel free to get your copy early here!

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #825: GREAT FRIDAY

 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. And when He fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, "If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread."

But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"

Satan laughed. "Eh, just fucking with you, kid. Kinda weird that your Dad sent me to see if you'll flake on Him. Seems pretty insecure to me."

Jesus said to him, "It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God.'"

"I get it. Family's family. You're a pretty loyal guy. And you seem to have humanity's best interests in heart. But you really haven't thought this through. They're going to kill you for trying to pervert Jewish holy law. Not 'might kill you.' I'm saying 'will kill you.'"

Jesus said, "I will never fall to my knees and worship you no matter how much you offer me."

"I'm not offering you anything," Satan said. "And I don't want you to worship me. But I think you'd change your mind if you knew what I knew."

Jesus said, "The mouth of Satan issues naught but hot air."

Satan smiled. "That's quite an insult from you. I like it. I'm offering something to humanity instead."

Jesus turned away, prepared not to listen to the Devil's words.

Satan swept a hand across the horizon. "BEHOLD!"

Clouds swirled in the miasma covering the universe. Jesus saw visions of the future. He saw dictators murdering millions in the name of Jesus Christ. He saw politicians oppressing people in the name of Jesus Christ. He saw intellectual bankruptcy in the form of book burning and banning in the name of Jesus Christ. He saw millennia of people doing billions of terrible things to their fellow humans all in the name of Jesus Christ.

"All of this will come to pass," Satan said. "All because you thought you were doing the right thing. And you were. Indeed, you were. It's not your fault that others took your mission and perverted it in the name of evil."

"That's almost funny coming from you," Jesus said.

"I have always been on humanity's side," Satan said. "From the Garden of Eden. Unless you think Knowledge of Good and Evil is something to be withheld from sentient beings. And now I'm trying to save the world from all the terrible things that will be done because you mindlessly followed your Father's instructions. True evil is taking the Lord's name in vain. And that doesn't mean saying 'goddammit,' for example. It's doing evil in the name of the Lord, pretending to be good. Think of the countless lives that will be saved if you turn away now."

Jesus shook and watched as more horrors played out before his very eyes, and he realized in that moment that all the shit in the world outweighed the good of sacrificing himself. Now that he thought about it, his Dad wouldn't have come up with some bullshit like this. Creators aren't interested in the morality of their creations. If God wanted to change a rule, then He should just change the rule. In fact, why have rules in the first place? It sounded like something that humanity would come up with, not a creator.

Jesus sighed. "OK, I won't go."

The Devil clapped him on the shoulder. "That was the kindest thing you could have done."

Jesus disbanded his disciples. He stopped wandering the earth performing miracles. He married and had kids and lived a very long life. He died an old man surrounded by his loved ones. And while humanity didn't live happily ever after, as religion still existed, they had a much better go of it than they would have otherwise.

THE END

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #824: ROAD HOUSE

 

Road House is one of my favorite fucking movies. Forget the stuff about a drifter coming to town to clean out the bad guys. As a fan of westerns that is one of my favorite kinds of stories. But look deeper. I love the idea that there is a secret underground society of coolers, philosophical warriors, and that road houses and bars and such seek to hire members of this society to clear out assholes and scumbags from their establishments. But not by force. By being nice. Until, of course, it's time to not be nice. But that's a last resort thing.

It's exceptionally well written and acted. The bad guys are fucking bad, except for Tinker, maybe. Poor Tinker is a little too likeable and stupid to be as bad as the others. But the rich corporate guy wants to take over this small town, and it's up to Dalton to take him on. With a little help from the best, Wade Garrett. The important thing, though, is Dalton uses intelligence to fight these guys. He uses his wits. But when things get really bad, like when he's fighting the dude who fucked men tougher than Dalton in prison, he's willing to rip out a throat. Needs must.

So yeah. The fact that someone did a remake of this wonderful classic didn't sit well with me. And I'm the kind of guy who gave up on remakes, reboots, what have you. I don't watch them because I know I won't like them. I know at least 50 people, probably more, who will watch every one of these things because they can't help themselves. If I asked them why, they usually say something to the effect that they're expecting the worst, hoping for the best. Which is what I used to say until I stopped. I realized that the reason they keep making these things is because of people who say they'll watch it even though they think it will suck. So if they stopped watching these fucking things, then these fucking things would stop getting made. It's reliable IP (and don't get me started on people who refer to art as IP) that puts asses in seats. So stop putting your ass in that seat, and they'll stop tormenting us with their artistic bankruptcy.

But I had to watch the new Road House. I wanted it to be good, and I hoped for some of the same thrill I got from watching the original.

Much to my surprise I actually did like it. Don't get me wrong. It's not nearly as good as the original. It gets rid of the underground society of coolers. It gets rid of the be-nice creed, although the new Dalton is as nice as he can be until it's time to not be nice. I love how he beats the shit out of a few people only after he knows there's a nearby hospital, and then he borrows a car so he can drive those guys to said hospital. It's a nice touch. (He also apologizes to the ER doctor for the extra work!)

The villain is still a rich douchebag with a seemingly unending supply of goons. He's not quite the same as the original (I suspect his imprisoned father is more in line with that), but he's crazy and a little unhinged. He recognizes right off the bat that he can't beat Dalton in a physical fight, so he fucks with his mind by telling him he knows all about Dalton's dark past as a UFC fighter who killed a guy in the Octagon.

I'm not too happy with the UFC stuff. It's stupid, but it's not a deal breaker.

Which brings us to the worst part of this movie: Conor McGregor, former UFC fighter turned actor. He's not necessarily bad at the job. I kind of like the awful strutting and grinning he does in this movie. And he really likes to strut with his butt hanging out, which is kind of funny. And he certainly is a menace tougher than the original Dalton had to deal with. But the character is flat, almost nonexistent. He's not a person, he's a manic bundle of bad-guyness designed for a hero to defeat. Although he's a good foil for Dalton. Dalton uses violence as a last resort, and he doesn't like to do even that. McGregor (I can't remember the character's name, and I wonder why . . .) chooses violence first and foremost, and I have the impression that it gets his dick hard.

I just don't understand how an accused rapist and abuser of women got an acting job in Hollywood. Judging by the things he's been up to, he's a huge fan of violence outside the Octagon and might not have been acting all that much in this film. It's a bit much for me, but it did make me feel better near the end of the movie (but made me angry again with a post credits scene). I think they should have gotten someone else for this role. I suspect it might have been written for McGregor, though. All things considered.

So the remake is fun. It's badass cinema. It's good. But it doesn't even come close to touching the original. I think it was Outlaw Vern who said that capturing lightning in a bottle again in this case is impossible because they stopped making that kind of bottle. I think he's right. I liked the flick. Just proceed with caution.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #823: COCAINE HIPPOS

 Imagine you're in the Mexican town of Puerto Triunfo. Just hanging out. Maybe you're on vacation. You want to see the sights a little, so you wander off the beaten path and HOLY SHIT! WHY ARE THERE FUCKING HIPPOS IN MEXICO?

An excellent question, as they are native to Africa and shouldn't even be in this hemisphere. How did they get there? And why are there so many of them? 170 to be exact?

One man's hubris, of course. It's always hubris behind these kinds of things. Except the man in question this time is Pablo Escobar. Back in the 'Eighties he bought a lot of animals and created a private zoo for his own pleasure. Among those animals were four hippos. All 170 are descended from them, and if this keeps up, they may number in the thousands soon.

When Escobar was killed the zoo became a tourist attraction because, and I can't believe I'm saying this, the former drug kingpin's estate was turned into a fucking theme park. Disneyland. Universal Studios. Oh yeah, and Escobarland. The zoo is still there, but the hippos, for whatever reason, were able to escape and reproduce. They are now considered an invasive species with no natural predator. If hippos have a natural predator, I have no idea what the fuck that would look like. They're damned near impossible to kill. Good thing they generally don't eat meat.

The problem has gotten so out of hand that authorities, who for some reason unbeknownst to anyone have done nothing over the decades since Escobar's death, have decided to sterilize them and/or euthanize them. I can't imagine what that operation must be like. Could you imagine anesthetizing a hippo so you can clip its tubes? Picture that for a moment, and you'll realize the sheer insanity of that.

Nothing is sane about this story. Nothing. This shit got out of hand fast, and it's only going to get crazier. They plan to sterilize 40 hippos a year. Each sterilization costs ten grand and requires a team of eight. How feasible is that?

I've had all kinds of infestations in the places I've lived. Cockroaches, ants, flies, even bees one year. I can't wrap my mind around a hippo infestation. Who could? Can you grasp that?

I guess the lesson here is, if you're going to be a drug kingpin, don't buy hippos no matter how much you want to. And you might want to. Also, make sure that when you're gunned down in the future to leave property that the authorities can turn into a theme park, please and thank you.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #822: LEGAL EXTORTION

 Corporations never get tired of fees. They can fee the shit out of you left and right, up and down, every which way but loose except they do loose, too. Want to get your money from an ATM? Enjoy your withdrawal fee. Do you like using the gas pedal in your car? You can continue using it so long as you pay your monthly subscription. And let's not bother looking at airlines and the Cthulhu tentacled maw of fees hanging out of their asses. Most people just pay the fee and move on, but we shouldn't be encouraging that kind of behavior. All the fees are out of control for everything. And if you don't think that's important, let me set the stage for tonight's story.

You live in Libertyville, IL, and you're a pregnant mom with two kids and a passel of dogs. You've just returned from the pet shop, and you walk your 7-year-old and dogs into the house before you go back for your 2-year-old in the car seat. Except this is the moment when two carjackers chose to steal your car. The one that still has your li'l tyke in it.

Mom power takes over, and you rush to save your kid, but the carjackers attack you before running you over with your own car. You're still alive, probably running on sheer adrenaline, but there's nothing more you can do as your car vanishes in the distance.

Luckily your car has a GPS tracker, so you call the car company to get the location of your vehicle. You get your kid back. The carjackers go to prison. Everyone lives happily ever after.

Except the car company is Volkswagen, and your GPS free trial has expired. If you want to get your kid back (not sure how you feel about the car at this point), you will have to pay a $150 fee to activate the software.

That's what happened to a Libertyville family not too long ago. VW refused to help until they had that $150 payment. Even the cops were taken aback, and you know how I feel about those fucking guys. Check it out:

"This is an abducted 2-year-old, and the response was there is nothing they can do this is their policy," added Deputy Chief Chris Covelli with the Lake County Sheriff's Office.

Holy shit. Corporations do not care about you. They only care about money. Remember that every time you see a commercial where the corporation claims their workers are all family, and it's a fun and rewarding workplace. Here's a quote from the mother in this story:

"I didn't even think that that would be an issue that Volkswagen would refuse to tell us where our son was - especially when it's a kidnapping, and every second matters," said Shepherd. "It's life or death that we're going to get him home."

And here's the bitch of this story. VOLKSWAGEN DID NOT HELP UNTIL THEY PAID THAT FEE. Only then did they activate the software and find the car. By then it was a moot point. Someone had found the kid wandering by a highway in Waukegan. They also found the car, so this story has a somewhat happy ending. I say somewhat because they never did get the carjackers. And the family suffers from nightmares. They're all in therapy now. Understandably so.

After the fact, and without contacting the family in question, Volkswagen started offering the GPS feature for free for five years. Fucking assholes. Although I can only imagine what would happen if they were called upon to help solve another kidnapping after the five year time limit. I can only guess they'll want $150 to help. Or more. I'm sure by that point it will be two hundred. Hell, why not three? If regulators are too stretched thin to, uh, regulate, then what's to stop you from charging four hundred? Five?

I'll let the mom have the last word, and I hope it's something you'll think about the next time you're tempted to pay a fee just to ignore it.

"How could you not give that information when you know what could happen to that little child?" Shepherd said.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #821: NOT FEELING IT

 Nope. Not at all. I got sick again this morning. I also had my abscess wound violated. The doctor put a Q-Tip into the wound several times to see how deep it is. So no, I'm not feeling it tonight.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #820: AIN'T

 After last night's GF I'm sure you can figure out that I'm not doing all that great. I'm still leaking bloody pus from my ass, so I'd rather not be sitting at my laptop and typing. I was already at work for eight hours, where I sat down all day. My ripped up jeans aren't looking so hot, but I decided to wear my trench coat whenever I had to stand up. Only the sups know about about the seat of my pants.

So needless to say, this will be a short one.

Every once in a while I hear someone admonish someone else for using the word "ain't." They say things like, "Ain't isn't a word." I need that to stop now. Yes, this is coming from the guy who fought tooth and nail to hold onto the Oxford comma. I lost that one and others, and the score is very obvious to me now. Evolve or be left behind.

The next time someone tells you ain't isn't a word, tell 'em I said fuck you. No, wait, don't do that. Sorry, I'm feeling very . . . raw. Raw is the perfect word for my current state. No, instead tell them to look at a dictionary. They'll find ain't under the A's. So yeah, that makes it a word.

Languages are supposed to evolve over time. Take a look at the earliest form of our language, Old English. It has very little in common with modern usage of English. Ours is a Germanic language, and Old English sounds kind of like German.

Ain't might not be grammatical, as it's a contraction of "is not." One would be hard pressed to find out what "ai" means. But you should still use "ain't."

If I were to say to you the word "enormity," what would you say that means? Hint: it doesn't mean "enormous." Give up? It indicates a bad act or an immoral act, one that's really, really bad. Like, say, flying a couple of planes into the World Trade Center. But so many people got the definition wrong that the language said, fuck it. Enormity means big now.

This one still irritates me, but language evolution is also why when people use the word "literally" they could be referring to something figurative instead. People literally kept saying "literally" for dramatic effect rather than its actual meaning. Watching a baseball player running fast to home plate, an announcer might say, "Look at him go! He's literally on fire!" But there is an unfortunate lack of flames on the player's body. I still hold a grudge on this one, but fine.

Heh. Fine usually means OK, but considering how many people use it who are suffering in silence? I'll bet fine will mean something else in the near future.

Language evolves. Evolve with it.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #819: THE RETURN OF THE ABSCESS

 Around about the time I started writing these columns I had a horrible abscess in a very uncomfortable place, ie. an inch from my sack. I don't feel like going back through 14 years of Tales of Unspeakable Taste to find the pieces I wrote about it. Needless to say, it was a harrowing experience, one I would have liked to never experience again.

The abscess didn't come back the very next day, but it did rear its ugly face again. A little while ago I was showering when I felt an odd lump on the inside of my right asscheek, right there in the crack. It was maybe the size of my fingernail. Oh shit. Well, I'm seeing my doctor in a couple of weeks. I'll mention it to him then.

And the fucker grew overnight. I wouldn't say it was as big as a baby's fist, like the first abscess had been, but this one was long and felt kind of like the first two knuckles of my middle finger. Due to my recent ER visits I didn't want to go back there. My hospital was bought out, and I think the new corporate overlords are trying to enshittify it. I hoped my doctor could lance it himself, so I called his office and was told in no uncertain terms that this falls under the purview of the ER.

So I went back, thinking at least it wasn't five yet. Five is when it gets really busy there. But my hopes were dashed immediately when I saw the waiting room was full. So I sat--on my ass, you know, the one with the fucking abscess on it--and waited for hours. They were so busy they put me on the cardiac ward instead.

The doc eventually came in, numbed my butt cheek and cut into the abscess. I could feel his findings dribbling down to the back of my nutsack. I was face down, so at least I was spared the stink, unlike last time. It felt like I lost about fifteen pounds of bloody pus, but when I sat up it looked like a watery blood stain, not nearly as big as I expected. Although it looked like it had gone down the outside of my thigh, too. When you pop an abscess, the rotten pus inside can go a fair distance. I remember the first time I saw bloody pus spots on the ceiling.

Thankfully I had experience, so I knew to wear a pair of boxers that didn't fit that well and a pair of ripped up jeans that I never wear anymore. I don't mean the knees were ripped up. If I wear pants long enough, the crotch eventually tears itself open in little spots. I still wore them because I didn't have a lot of money, but once I ran the risk of my dick poking out I packed them away.

I didn't think about my trench coat, though, nor the seat of my car. I pulled the back of the coat up so it was above my waist, and I had a plastic bag in my console. I usually keep it there for when I go to Sonic because I've never *not* had their bags rip on me. As I type this I sit on another plastic bag to protect my blanket.

(If you ever wondered what I look like when I write these, I'm sitting in bed wearing nothing but my boxers. How's that for a horrifying fuckin' image?)

Today was my day off. Tomorrow I have to go to work with the seat of my pants stained red. I will sit on a plastic bag at my desk. And I will probably be in pain, but lucky me, I held back a few pain pills. Hopefully that will pacify my ass. Literally. Anyway, it should be fun explaining to my coworkers why my pants are stained in such a fashion. Ordinarily I'd have to tell that to just one person, but they canceled work at home last week, so the office will be full tomorrow. Lucky them.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #818: LIVING ON PAST DEATH

 I spent almost all of my life being a shitty cook. I could barely put a bowl of cereal together. It's weird because my dad was a great cook. So was his father before him, so it's not like it skips a generation. I can't tell you how many kitchens I've set on fire because I was a lousy cook. Scratch that, I can tell you the exact number: four.

For the longest time I thought I just didn't have it in me. Like building things or writing what my mom called "nice stories." "Do you have to write about death all the time? Why can't you write something nice?" But as I grew older I thought maybe there was a psychological block in my head somewhere. I loved my dad, but we had a few issues over the years, and I didn't want to follow in his footsteps. So maybe that was it.

A friend of mine agreed, and he offered to teach me how to make my favorite food ever: cheeseburgers. And now I make some damn fine burgers. With the cheese on top of the patty, goddammit. On top, like it's supposed to be, Randers.

I figured if I could make a cheeseburger breakthrough, maybe if I put my mind to it I can teach myself how to cook. Now that I think about it, I'm sure I've talked about this before. That's the thing about doing 800+ columns. It's hard to remember every single thing you've written about.

But I'm going into something specific here. While I was on sick leave, during a day where I felt pretty decent, I decided to make a full breakfast. Eggs, toast, bacon, hash browns. Except I have no fucking clue how to make hash browns.

But the second to last time I went out to Vegas to visit Dad, he showed me an alternate way to make them: mash up a bunch of tater tots. So that's what I did. Granted, I was using memories that were a few years old and experienced originally through an alcohol haze, but by the time I was done and eating I couldn't help but think, goddam, these hash browns are really fucking good.

I realized in that moment that Dad was living through me. He was alive again for however long it took me to make those hash browns and eat them. It was a good feeling. I may even have lamely said hi to him, but I can't be certain, especially not in such a public forum. My eyes might have been a little wet, too. It was probably caused by dust.

I rode high on that good feeling until later that night when I realized, no, Dad lived through me because I'm his flesh and blood continued. He lives through my brother, Frank, and my sister Rachael. But more to the point, I'm an uncle now. (If you can imagine that horror. And yes, I've decided that if called upon to perform uncle-type duties, I will model myself after Gary Busey in Silver Bullet, as God intended.) Dad lives on through li'l baby Jameson.

Sometimes I think that's the point of life, to keep the ball rolling. I kinda blew that one, as I have no children. I sometimes joke that I don't think I have kids, but I'm 99% certain I don't. I'm very careful when it comes to that kind of thing. But to keep the chain of humanity going ever onward, ever evolving, for as long as we can? That seems to be something we're good at.

Then again, sometimes I think the point of life is having a really good breakfast, and that day I dined like a king.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #817: TIME IS A FLAT CIRCLE, REDUX

 My brother, Alex, shares his birthday with Kurt Russell on March 17. That's pretty cool. Up until 5 seconds ago I was only aware that I shared a birthday with Walter Payton, which only really means something if you live in my neck of the woods. The reason I say "until 5 seconds ago" is because I Googled it, and it looks like there are other celebrities who have their birthday on July 25. I don't really give much of a shit about Lindsay Lohan, Miley Cyrus and Matt LeBlanc, but holy shit! Woody Strode was born on July 25! So was Walter Brennan, which probably means nothing to many of you. But Natalie Portman might get your attention.

Ooh. La-di-da. Look at me. Jeez. Anyway.

The reason I bring up Kurt Russell is because he does a fantastic job as Wyatt Earp in the movie, Tombstone. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that, kind of like I don't have to tell you that water is wet. I noticed something that not many other people talk about, which is that Russell adds a particular flavor to his acting style in this one. I saw it again in H8ful Eight and in Bone Tomahawk, which others *have* mentioned, but if you really want to go back he did it in Big Trouble in Little China, where it's a lot more pronounced.

In these films Russell adds quite a bit of John Wayne to his performances. Go back and watch Tombstone again. You'll hear it in Russell's speech patterns.

It's a funny thing. If you go back to the very beginning of John Wayne's career, back when he was still signing photos as "Marion," it turns out that Wayne modeled his demeanor after this guy who used to hang out on the sets of westerns in Hollywood's infancy. He thought this guy was the toughest son of a bitch he'd ever met and wanted to be just like him. He walked like this guy, he talked like this guy. The very persona of the Duke that everyone around my age is very familiar with was all based on this one guy.

This guy was there as a consultant. You see, he'd actually been part of the Wild West. He'd been the law in cow towns like Abilene and Dodge City (yes, Dodge City!). In fact, he ran a faro table in Tombstone. It's difficult to say how many men this guy killed, but the estimates range from eight to upwards of thirty.

That's the thing, though. He didn't *just* run a faro table in Tombstone. That guy's name?

His name was Wyatt Earp.

Time is a flat circle.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #816: THIS ALSO SHALL PASS AWAY

 The older I get, the more I hear people say, "Oh God. I'm so old!" And the funny thing is, I hear people in their fuckin' twenties saying it. Granted, the world is so fucked right now that I'm not surprised they feel old. But I have a theory. People who say they're so old absolutely fucking love saying it. I think deep down they don't actually believe they're really old.

I think I'm old, but 45 isn't that old, big picture. Not only that, but the longer I live, the more I realize that appearance of age has changed drastically since I was a kid. People who were in their sixties when I was a wee lad looked more like they were in their eighties. Sixties looks a lot younger these days than it used to. Not sure what caused that, but people are staying more youthful than they used to. As a result, I think the only people allowed to say they're old are people aged seventy and above.

Conversely, don't ever dare tell a young person that they're young. Young people fucking hate that with a passion. I think it's their urge to grow up and be taken seriously. Young people look even younger to me today. College kids look like junior high schoolers to me. And they will fight tooth and nail to be considered old. Maybe that's why they start saying it in their twenties. It's an attempt to appear more worldly in the eyes of others.

I swear to fuck, youth is wasted on the young. If I knew all the things I do now back when I was still a teenager, I would have maximized my youth to its fullest potential. But I didn't. I was too busy thinking old. But there are things that I was very much aware of back then.

I was one of the very few kids who didn't want to grow up. (Yes, I was a Toys Backwards R Us kid.) I tried to hold onto the things of childhood later than others my age because I knew that the real world would be waiting to chew me up and spit me out, and I wanted to prolong that day for as long as possible. I still played with my GI Joes and Transformers long after I should have. I'd tell you when I stopped, but I'm going to leave that to your imagination. You'd think I was crazy. Considering all the other crazy shit I've said here, that's probably saying something.

I remember the last class I had in high school. I remember looking around, thinking I would never see this place again. I'd graduate, and that was it. When I walked out the main entrance to the buses, then I would no longer be a student. And I have never gone back to York Community High School since graduation. I clutched at these things, trying to stop time from moving so goddam fast. Savoring experiences that no one else ever would simply because I knew I wouldn't have that in adulthood.

When I hit adulthood, I hit pretty hard. I accepted that my world had moved on, and I had to move on to keep up. The world is always moving on. And I think that's what's at the heart of my midlife crisis.

"This also shall pass." Contrary to popular belief that's not in the Bible. It's in Solomon's Seal by Edward FitzGerald. It's probably an old Persian saying, but FitzGerald popularized it. I suppose it's easy to see why so many people think it's biblical. But here's the quote: "The Sultan asked Solomon for a signet motto, that should hold good for Adversity and Prosperity. Solomon gave him, 'This also shall pass away.'" I'm certain it's what Chuck Berry was thinking of when he wrote "Pass Away."

It's possibly the wisest thing someone could say. It's 100% true in the best of times and the worst of times. It was true before humanity rose from the beasts, and it will be true after we're gone.

I want you to think of your favorite toy from when you were a kid. Some of you may even still have it, but I'll bet for most of you it's long gone. Do you long for it? Or do you think, ah, that's just kid stuff. Now hold your most prized possession and know that one day either you will not have it, or it will not have you. You always hope for the former, but the latter is always there, waiting. As Chuck Berry said, "But mortal flesh must come to clay, even this must pass away."

"I'm so old!" Maybe. Maybe not. But the next time someone says that to you, look them in the eye. You'll feel the words are exaggerated frustration, and that there is a gleam of pleasure in that person's eyes. Don't be so quick to age. If you live long enough, you'll get there, and I'll bet not a single one of you will facetiously say you're old. When you say it in the future, YOU WILL MEAN IT. And then there's no turning back. The world will have moved on.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #815: SNOW FORT

 When I was a kid I built my share of snow forts. The unfortunate thing is, I was lousy at it. Thankfully, and this is probably the only time you'll hear me say this, but thankfully I had my stepfather.

I talk shit about him all the time with good reason, but no one is completely a piece of shit. Except for Donald Trump, but he barely qualifies as human. At any rate, my stepfather had a few good qualities, and one of them was he was a genius. He was a biologist with a well-known Chicago area university, and he wrote books on the subject.

I should probably mention, before you start armchair shrinking me, that I wanted to be an author *before* I met him. Just a weird coincidence.

One of the things he was really good at was building snow forts. They were masterpieces of architecture. He tried to teach me how, but I have no skill for building anything, the reason being is I can somehow measure out, say, an inch, but anyone else measuring the same inch would get two. At first I thought I was so unlucky that I blamed every ruler I ever got for being wrong until I realized that the problem was with me.

Hey, I was ten years old when I came to that conclusion.

I shit you not, someone could live in his snow forts. The walls were so solid you could probably punch one and break your hand. And these fuckers were huge. As a child I could stand up inside, reach my hand up and barely touch the ceiling. And he didn't just build this part, because he knew that you needed a refuge during a snow battle, but you needed ramparts to defend, too. He also built those ramparts so that they were nearly impenetrable.

No one could sack our snow fort, no matter how hard they tried. I rarely won anything when I was in his presence, but I could win snow wars. And yes, I did pretend I was on Hoth during such skirmishes.

You know what I never see anymore? Kids building snow forts. It seems they're only interested in snowmen, and that's just barely. I know, I know, kids today have so many things vying for their attention, but I *did* have TV when I was a kid. Maybe the other parents back then forbade their kids from watching TV for too long, and they're not doing that for any and all devices today for whatever reason.

I don't want to come off as a grumpy old man complaining about kids today ("But?" I hear you ask), but my complaint is *not* with the kids. It's with their parents. We have adults today who were raised on the internet and tablets and smartphones, and that can't possibly be healthy. Why aren't parents more vigilant today? I'm sure middle-aged men when I was a kid were bitching about how TV couldn't possibly be healthy for kids, so maybe I'm just muttering darkly at the cloud instead of yelling at it. I *do* think I'm going through a midlife crisis, after all. I could be talking out of my ass, but the older I get the more I enjoy time away from any screen, any modern tech. It feels better, and I'm not sure why other people don't do that. I get it. Devices are addictive. They're designed that way, like cigarette companies putting nicotine in their product.

*sigh* Ah well.

I have very few happy memories with my stepfather, but I do miss those days building snow forts with him.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #814: OH, THE SPINAL INJECTIONS YOU'RE GOING TO GET!

 I think I might have mentioned here that I've been getting spinal injections for my bad foot and for the pain in my back. I've had three of them so far, and the fourth and final one is scheduled for next Thursday.

Except . . .

Today I saw the doctor I originally saw for this, not the pain clinic doc. We were discussing next steps, and I told him about the injections. He said he does those procedures himself and knows they're good, and he's glad I'm feeling better, but he doesn't think that last injection will help me. It will be the same as the one I got last Thursday, meaning it won't be different like the other two. It's for arthritis in my back, and he doesn't think it will help with what he thinks is causing the pain.

Because now that I've had an MRI he can see the discs between my vertebrae. Two of them we already knew were too thin, but now we can see they're bulging, too. Not much. Just enough to cause the pain. He says an epidural injection would be more beneficial to me, and that it should kill the pain but good.

So now I'm wondering what the hell I should do. I'm leaning toward doing the epidural and canceling next week's injection, but I want to talk to the pain clinic first. I also have a bunch of new info in my MyChart to look over in regards to the epidural. It's not a decision I need to make today, so I'm going to think about it tomorrow and over the weekend. I'll figure it out by Monday.

To do one spinal injection, or to do a different one? It's gonna suck either way. I view it as an Alien v Predator situation: whoever wins, we lose.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #813: TIKTOK BAN

 

You probably heard about the TikTok bill working its way through Congress today because the House passed it on to the Senate, where it's likely to pass on to Joe Biden's desk. Biden has already said he would sign it into law.

I hesitate to use the word ban, because that's technically not what Congress is doing. Technically. Their problem is that ByteDance, who owns the company, is located in China, and we all know that talking shit about China gets politicians' dicks hard. Their concern is that the Chinese government might try to force the company to surrender its American users' data. (What about the rest of the world's data? Ah, fuck 'em, right?) What the bill actually says is, in order to continue operating in the US, ByteDance must sell TikTok to someone we're *not* enemies with. Either that, or they can kiss the US market goodbye.

So it's not a ban. It's a my-way-or-the-highway suggestion. It's altogether possible that ByteDance will eat the loss and move on because the US is only number three when it comes to population by country in the world. We're not even at half a million, and China and India have about 1.4M each. Granted, they're not all TikTok users, but that's a pretty wide market to take a bite out of. That's still not taking into account the populations of the other 231 countries. I saw a stat that says there's 172M TikTok users in the US. It would be painful to move on without us, but it's doable.

So it's possible it could turn into a ban, and all those politicians who voted for it will have their kids at their throats. I'm sure they live there on those various and sundry throats already, but I'm a little eager to see how that unfolds. Because I actually agree. TikTok should be held accountable, but not for the reasons Congress thinks.

Because ANY AND ALL corporate social media platforms do not give a single solitary fuck about their users' data. They view it as their job to take as much as possible from the users, not to help them. Helping people is detrimental to a company's bottom line. Social media is a huge fucking scam, and none of our data is safe.

If you doubt me, try turning down the terms and conditions when you sign up for a site. Have you ever read the terms and conditions? I'll bet you haven't, and if you did you wouldn't be so fast to sign away the rights to your data. But let's say you wanted to read the whole fucking thing. How long would it take?

That long. Whoo-boy, that Microsoft one is an absolute killer. These terms are designed that way to discourage you from reading it. Why spend the time when it's just easier to click on YES?

And don't get me wrong. I'm with you all, too. I signed my data away, as well, because there were more advantages to having, say, a Facebook page than there were disadvantages. But the longer I think about it, the less I'm comfortable with that.

I read a story today about how a bunch of people got scammed by a chef on Facebook. The problem is, it wasn't him. It was his profile, but someone hacked him, and when he tried getting his page back Facebook was absolutely no help. Such complaints apparently fall down into a black hole and are never seen again. No, really!

Like the guy in that story, most people who are hacked out of their profiles are so frustrated they give up and leave social media altogether. I understand that, but how comfortable are you knowing that a scammer now controls your Facebook page and has access not only to all your pictures, but also to those DMs you send?

You've known me a while, so I'm sure you know what my next step is. That's right, social media isn't special. ALL corporations do this. If you're unfamiliar with Cory Doctorow's concept of "enshittification," it goes like this. Companies are super helpful to their users while they're building their audience. Then they fuck over their users in favor of advertisers. The final step is when they fuck over the advertisers in favor of their own products. Since we're using Facebook as an example, you can very easily track their enshittification. The moment Meta reared its head was when it entered the third stage. For some reason, though, Facebook has not collapsed like so many others before it. But as Doctorow is fond of quoting, "Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop." Cheerful thought. Seems obvious, but think about it for a moment. What would you do if tomorrow Coca-Cola went out of business? Doesn't seem possible, does it? But one day Coke will be gone. It's a fact. We might not be around for that day, but it will come.

Long story short (too late) I don't think Congress is going far enough. TikTok is doing to its American users exactly what EVERY FUCKING SOCIAL MEDIA SITE DOES TO ITS AMERICAN USERS. All of them. No exceptions. So why go after just TikTok? Because they're Chinese and thus are our enemies?

Maybe we're getting a glimpse into the mind of Americanus politicianis, one of the most terrible species on the planet. The message I'm getting from them is, Chinese companies can't fuck with American users because, dammit, that's our job. We can't be outsourcing the abuse of American consumers to foreign nations. American companies might starve to death, and that's unthinkable.

Apply this bill to all corporations doing business in America, you fucking cowards.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #812: RANDY'S CHEESEBURGERS

The Jim Lahey Show and Randy

 

If you follow me on social media, you know I did a rewatch of Trailer Park Boys. It turns out I missed a couple of movies the first time, and there's a new series. I finished it all, but that new series is exclusive to Swearnet. If you don't know, the boys created their own streaming network so they didn't have to be constrained by someone else's rules. For just two bucks a month you get access to everything.

So I finished what they had of TPB: Jail Shorts and moved on to other stuff. You all know I have an affinity for Mr. Lahey, as he and I were both thrall to the Liquor and its extremes. So I was happy to discover The Jim Lahey Show and Randy, a late night show with booze, cursing, alcoholic blowouts and other lunacies, weed and Randy's cheeseburger recipes.

Like, for example, Cheeseburger Pancakes. Yes, you read that right.

I'm a lot like Randy, too. When I'm at home I rarely wear a shirt, and I fuckin' love cheeseburgers. But I gotta get something off my chest. Randy doesn't know how to make a cheeseburger.

Randy is one of those assholes who puts the cheese UNDER THE PATTY. I'm a burger purist, and nothing should go under the meat. Everything should go up on top. Putting anything UNDER the meat changes the whole taste dynamic.

I think only cheese, ketchup and mustard should go on a burger. Some fast food places have decent onions and pickles, and I can live with that. I ordinarily hate bacon on a burger, but I've discovered that for some strange unfathomable reason the Bacon McDouble is great.

I'm never going to give anyone shit for putting tomatoes or lettuce on their burgers, but I would never put them on my burger. To me that's crazy talk. You can't let supposedly healthy food get in the way of a good burger.

And yes, if you were wondering I absolutely hate it when food touches food. Food must be pure and eaten separately from other food. And no, I won't just take the tomato and lettuce off the burger. THAT SHIT HAS INFECTED THE BURGER. It's of no use to me now.

And yes (again) I am a little OCD. Maybe more than that. I used to be a lot worse. I wouldn't exactly say I was Adrian Monk, but I was pretty bad.

*sigh* Maybe I'm being harsh on ol' Randers. I guess if it makes him happy, he should do it. I just hate to see good cheeseburgers go to waste like that.

And don't get me started on those damned kids on my lawn!