MY TWENTY YEAR PROJECT

 Earlier this year I finished a project I began 20 years ago. I was a huge western fan when I was a kid. I watched reruns of Gunsmoke and Rawhide most back then, but I also loved Have Gun Will Travel and Wanted: Dead or Alive. I didn't get into Maverick until the Mel Gibson movie came out, but I fell in love with that series, too.

I noticed one thing about all these shows, though: the characters killed an excessive number of people, and they also got shot a lot. Some of these guys should be more scar tissue than person, in fact. So I decided to keep a tally of this while I watched every single episode of these five shows on the 50th anniversary of each one airing.

Here are those results.

I learned that the more cast members you have, the more these numbers get spread out among them. On Rawhide they weren't quite the prolific killers that shows with a more limited cast would be. Plus there was some turnover for this show, as there were so many cast members. Here are the tallies starting with the minor characters and moving my way up.

Jed never got shot, but he killed five people. Ian similarly never got shot, but he killed two. Simon didn't get shot, either, and he only killed one person. Forester, Haysoos and Teddy never got shot, and they never killed anyone. Joe Scarlet never got shot, but he killed two people. Mushy (!) got shot once and killed two people. It's hard to picture him killing anyone, but he did it twice.

Quince has been shot four times, and he killed seven. Only seven, considering he was the biggest troublemaker in the lot. Pete Nolan got shot three times and killed fifteen people. Wishbone got shot once (and was dragged by a horse once), but he only killed five people. Not bad for a cantankerous old coot.

And now for the two leads. Rowdy Yates was shot 10 times (once with an arrow), and he killed thirty-nine people over the years. That's a low kill count for Clint, who once killed more Nazis than anyone else in the movie, Where Eagles Dare. I'm certain the scene in Preacher where the Saint of Killers shoots a bunch of Herr Starr's men was based on Clint's deeds in that one.

And Gil Favor was shot seven times, once with an arrow, and he was whipped once. He killed a whopping fifty people. If Rawhide happened in modern times, he'd be considered a serial killer.

Maverick has had the longest life of any of the westerns not named Gunsmoke. Not only was there the original show, but there were also three (!) other Maverick shows (The New Maverick, Young Maverick and Bret Maverick) and the Maverick movie I previously mentioned. Even that movie is canon, as James Garner still plays that same Bret Maverick, and Gibson is Bret Jr. So these tallies count all of that.

Bret Jr. didn't get shot once, but he killed a couple of people. Not bad for Gibson. Usually he plays kill-crazy bastards.

Brent Maverick got shot once and killed one person.

Ben Maverick didn't shoot anyone and never got shot. Pappy would be proud.

Beau Maverick (Roger Moore!) never got shot, but he did kill ten people.

Brother Bart got shot five times, and he killed fifty-two people! But he was the darker, more violent of the brothers.

Bret Maverick only got shot three times, but he was stabbed twice, and he killed a mere twenty-two people.

Josh Randall got shot twelve times, which is kind of amazing, but he killed seventy-seven people. Even a bounty hunter today would be hard pressed to explain that to the courts.

Paladin got around quite a bit. When he wasn't enjoying the San Francisco opera or a good book in the lobby of the Carlton, he got shot sixteen times (once with an arrow). Despite doing his level best to never kill someone unless he absolutely had to, he killed 198 motherfuckers. Holy fucking shit. That's . . . that's insane even by a western's standards. Unless the standard is set by . . .

Wanted: Dead or Alive did have a movie made out of it in the 'Eighties, but it doesn't really count. It was modernized with Rutger Hauer and Gene Simmons. So yeah, no. Gunsmoke, however, started in 1955 and ended in 1975. There were five made-for-TV movies made after, thus making it *the* western TV show of all time. This is another ensemble cast with some turnover, so let's start with the minor characters.

Newly O'Brien got shot five times. He also killed five people. Thad got shot six times and didn't kill anyone (poor Thad). Quint (Burt Reynolds!) got shot twice, stabbed once and whipped once, but he killed six people.

Then there were the assistants. Chester Goode was shot ten times, dragged by a horse once, stabbed once, and he killed eighteen people. Hard to believe Chester was capable of that. Festus Hagen, on the other hand, doesn't surprise anyone with his abilities. He got shot fifteen goddam times, bitten by a dog once, and he killed thirty five* people. WOW.

Miss Kitty got shot twice, and she killed five people. Doc got shot twice (over 20 years, that ain't bad), stabbed twice, and killed seven* people.

And then there's Matt Dillon, US Marshal. He got shot with an arrow once and stabbed twice, but he got shot an awe-inspiring sixty-two fucking times. And not counting the opening credits, he's killed 438* motherfuckers.

That's an astounding number by ANYONE's estimation. The hero that so many people back then looked up to had killed literally hundreds of people. HUNDREDS.

Not even I expected him to be that prolific a killer. Also, could you imagine being shot 62 times? He was a big dude (six-seven), but how the fuck was there anything left of him after that? He should look like Deadpool after all that shit.

*These three numbers are estimates because of one episode in the final season. That deserves some discussion because, for the first 19 years of the show, Matt Dillon loved nothing more than the law and upholding it, and he only killed people if he had no other choice. Festus had more or less the same view, although he was a little quicker to kill than Matthew. Doc loathed killing of any kind EXCEPT for this one episode.

What happened was, these three characters found themselves in a town of criminals, and instead of escaping and siccing the US government on them (as the Matt Dillon of the first 19 years would have done), they decide instead to blow this town up and kill every single man living there. This is an act of wanton violence none of these characters would have ordinarily wanted. The asterisk is because so many people died I couldn't count them all. So 438 is the lowest possible estimation. I only counted the ones I saw die. At least a hundred people lived there, but I can't say for sure.

The real reason I was doing this was so I could compare to the kills of horror movie slashers. I'll bet if you combined Freddy, Jason, Myers, Chucky, Leprechaun, Pinhead and the Cenobites (a great name for a rock band, to quote Dave Barry), and hell, let's throw Pumpkinhead in there, too, you still wouldn't have as many deaths as those caused by Matt Dillon. Which is funny to me. The parents back in the 'Eighties horrified by these monsters killing people while Matt Dillon, the hero of *their* childhood, killed more than all of them combined.

For some reason Matt Dillon stopped caring about the law during that last season and the five movies after. I suspected it was because Clint Eastwood was the western hero of the time, and he was an anti-hero, so maybe the writers wanted one of their own instead of the John Wayne inspired Dillon. And that might even be the real reason his character did a complete one-eighty during that time. But I have another theory, and if there are any Gunsmoke fans reading this, I'd like to hear your thoughts.

What's the one thing that's different about that final season of Gunsmoke? That's right, Miss Kitty left. There was no longer a feminine touch on the show. That last season was a sausage fest. But think about it a bit more. I think Matt Dillon's love for Miss Kitty was the real thing that kept him in check, and when she left, he lost any desire to uphold the law. He felt the world had punished him, so he decided to punish the world back. That last season of Gunsmoke shows us a good man who was broken by the absence of love, and that's why he really blew up that town of criminals with Festus and Doc's help. The next thing you know, he's no longer the marshal, and he's living out in the wilderness, where we find him in Return to Dodge.

Gunsmoke wasn't known for character development, at least not in the main characters, more like in the guest stars. But if I'm right, that's one hell of a swing to take.

NOTHING NEW TO AMERICA

 A short note tonight, perhaps an optimistic one, for our American society. I just finished the first volume of Hay and Nicolay's biography of Abraham Lincoln. They were secretaries to him during his time in the White House, and Hay later came back as the Secretary of State for McKinley, so these two men actually knew and worked with Lincoln, as opposed to how many biographers on the subject? I read it to learn more about Lincoln, but it had the side effect of teaching me about the events leading up to the Civil War.

What I want to bring to your attention, though, is the part of this volume that deals with how Kansas got its start. I really, really recommend reading at least this part to any American reading this. I understand that it's not going to be pleasant for most. History books rarely are. But I think it offers us a little bit of sunshine on a rainy, say, four years.

All the political chaos we're going through right now? It doesn't hold a candle to what we went through in the 1850s. At the very least we don't have slavery in play right now. I mean, that could change at any moment, and I'm almost certain that the endgame for our corporate overlords is to bring slavery back, but this time to let it be colorblind. That's a story for another day, though.

We're supremely lucky that the federal government is terrible at being Nazis. They're more like the Hogan's Heroes version. Because if they were good at it, we'd be living in the days when people were literally murdering people on the opposite political aisle from them. Wholesale murder. Enough to make the practitioners serial killers.

Read this. It's mostly the last few chapters, but it will give you an idea of how horrendous things got before the Civil War, and it might give us some insight into avoiding the Civil War 2: War Harder. It will also tell you what they didn't teach you in elementary school: that slavery wasn't just a thing the South wanted to continue doing. They envisioned a slavery empire. Let the North have their dinky free states. The South wasn't going to stop at stealing Texas from the Mexicans. They wanted to steal Mexico from the Mexicans. And Central America. They wanted their slavery paradise to stretch all the way down to Tierra del Fuego in the cruelest example of Manifest Destiny imaginable.

And that's why evil has always been baked into our country. Sadism and inhumanity have always been lurking under our polite veneer of freedom. Freedom for me, not for thee.

Hell, if they'd taught us about Kansas in school, we might not even be in this fucking situation right now.

I beseech you to click that link. Read the whole thing. It's enlightening. But at the very least read about Kansas.

If this entices you, they write about how Lincoln, when he was a young man, despised people who spoke crudely in front of women. In one instance, he beat the daylights out of one such guy . . . and then rubbed dogshit in his eyes. They never told us about that on Presidents Day.

THE RAT PATROL

 Nope. Not a Goodnight, Fuckers.

I swear.

Do I miss writing them? Yes. Very much so. But nope, this isn't one of those.

But it's gonna feel like it.

Today I finished The Rat Patrol, and it was an excellent series. I disliked the first episode, but I'm glad I stuck with it. It covers a part of WWII that doesn't get talked about much: the battles in North Africa.

But since I watched the end of Dark Shadows I've found myself wondering what happens to characters of a classic show after it goes off the air. Sam Hall gave a synopsis of what would have come next if Dark Shadows had been allowed to continue, so I found myself wondering what happened to these guys after the war. (Assuming, of course, they got to go home.)

Jack Moffitt

(Incidentally, the actor who played Moffitt had a role on House of the Dragon, so it's good to see he's still alive and kicking.)

Judging by a couple of episodes, I'd say that Moffitt is a romantic, but based on some of the decisions he's made over the two years of the show, I'd also say that he tries to suppress that part of him. I think he went back home to England, where he tried to have a go of a normal life. He married and had a couple of kids, but after his time in North Africa he couldn't get used to business as usual. He didn't find family life rewarding. He needed adventure, so he abandoned his family and moved to France, where he tried to find some of the romance he'd found as a spy (as depicted in one episode). He didn't succeed, and many years later his kids tracked him down and held him to account for what he did to their poor mother. He felt legitimately bad about it, and he tried to make it right, but his kids, now adults, couldn't bring themselves to trust him. He moved back to England, where he died an old man who spent most of his time in the pub, drinking what he had last week, as the song says.

Mark Hitchcock

(I'm almost certain this character was the main influence for Breaker from the 'Eighties GI Joe comics. He even blew bubble gum like Breaker did.)

I think Hitch partied like an animal when he got back to the US. Lots of drunken brawls and sex, probably often in the same night. I think he got thrown in a city jail a couple of times, but they always let him slide because he killed so many Nazis. And make no mistake, he killed a shit-ton of Nazis on the show. But eventually the fun had to stop, and he settled down with a wife and kids, and he came to be disgusted with the war, so he never talked about it ever again. When he died of cancer in the early 'Aughts, no one truly knew the extent of his service, but he was given a hero's burial in Arlington.

Tully Pettigrew

Tully is still alive today. He goes out to all the WWII reunions, even though there are fewer and fewer of his fellow soldiers each year. He goes to the local war memorial and traces the names of friends who never came home, people he misses to this day. He's quiet about what he did there, and he tried to get Hitch to see sense and not destroy his life the way he was doing. But all told, he handled his memories the best of anyone on the Rat Patrol, even . . . well, we'll get to him in a moment. Ish.

Sam Troy

Troy went home to his family, surprised by how his sons had grown so much while he was gone. All the same, he missed North Africa. He'd been good at his job, and while he did all right as a contractor back home, he could never quite get the hang of it. It horrified him that he came home, and his brother (seen in one episode) didn't. He blamed himself for not being his brother's keeper. He smoked too much. Drank too much. And eventually his habits caught up with him. Like the actor who played him, he died of a heart attack in the early 'Eighties.

Which brings us to . . .

Hans Dietrich

. . . the villain. Villains are always fun to think about. If you've written them correctly, the readers or viewers will identify with them, up to a point. The best villains have relatable POVs. They're good people who have made tremendously bad decisions, so many of them until they've twisted themselves into bad guys. So naturally I let myself think of his story a lot more than the other guys. And it's a doozy.

In fact, I enjoyed the process so much I'm not going to write about it here. Instead I'm just going to write the story. I've already started structuring it in my head to the point where I've written down some of the points I want to make. How would a Nazi, who gave everything to an empire he thought was noble but turns out to be a sham, end up? I remember clearly the episode where he finds out about the Final Solution, and it horrifies him. It disgusts him.

Yet he doesn't stop fighting. At the same time, he finds himself siding more and more with Troy and the others in the Rat Patrol. How many times did he turn against his superiors after he found out the truth about the Nazi regime? How many times did he save Troy's life?

What would a man like that turn into after the war?

I guess you'll find out when I get the time to write this one.

POST PRINTERS ROW SALE

 It's that time of year. I didn't get to bring many copies of my books for two reasons: we had limited space as we were down to one table, and I was still in the cast on a crutch, so carrying a lot of books was out of the question. I did pretty well. Sold out of the HST anthologies I'm in as well as And Jesus Came Back and Strip, and I almost sold all the copies of Eye Cutter I brought with me. Same for Tales of Unspeakable Taste. My new one, Mail Order Bride, didn't do so well, but I've talked to a few people who have read it, and they really, really love it. My comics guy's brother read it, so he's putting it on sale at his shop.

With two exceptions, I'm going to offer the same Printers Row deal we had last weekend. One for $15 or 3 for $40. If I can physically put these books in your hand, there's no shipping. Otherwise, I'll have to add $8 to the order. This is what I have available, and I'll get to those two exceptions last. (And Ben, if you're reading this, I'm holding on to my last copy of Strip for you. DM me, and I'll waive the shipping cost.)

For fans of the bizarre, the weird, the strange, StrangeHouse Books brings you a whirlwind of eighteen tales sure to amuse, confuse, horrify and leave you questioning your lack of taste. From the warped synapses of John Bruni come stories of the destruction of earth, via a humongous totally nude man in space, a portal to another dimension inside of an office worker's desk, a sordid love affair between two nefarious euthanasia enthusiasts, and many other yarns that span from psychological terror, to comedy, to downright disgusting!

John Bruni is a unique visionary, granting us entrance into a world that could exist just as easily decades from now as it could a week from tomorrow. The future he crafts for us in POOR BASTARDS AND RICH FUCKS is both surreal and surreptitiously familiar. His is a world where, regardless of how society advances, the human condition renders characters placated by apathy and disillusionment or excess and hedonism. POOR BASTARDS AND RICH FUCKS is your life, tangentially explored to ease your unease . . . but only a little. After all, it wouldn't be fun if you didn't squirm a little, would it? Kirk Jones, author of JOURNEY TO ABORTOSPHERE & UNCLE SAM'S CARNIVAL OF COPULATING INANIMALS It is the year 2200. Richard Coppergate and the wealthiest citizens of the city, have gathered for their annual game: kidnap seven people the world wouldn't miss--bums, prostitutes and the mentally ill--and turn them loose in the city with a mission to hunt and kill each other. The prize? One billion dollars. This year the stakes are personal. Two of the contestants are sons of the rich fucks. One of the contestants is a ringer. And one of the rich fucks likes hunting the contestants. Coppergate and his game have come to the attention of a revolutionary who lives off the grid and an outlaw journalist intent on bringing the whole thing crashing down. John Bruni, the author of TALES OF QUESTIONABLE TASTE, brings you POOR BASTARDS AND RICH FUCKS, the ultimate tale of the class struggle. Who will win? Who will die? Who are YOU going to place your bets on?

Only 3 left.

Jesus Christ has returned. He sets to work right away healing the sick and infirm, but also returning youth to the aged. There are doubters, but one by one Jesus proves them wrong with the aid of his friend, farmer Joe MacDonald. There’s just one problem: Jesus isn’t who he says he is. He is actually an alien from a planet of ruthless killers, and he’s there to get everyone on earth to be in shape for slavery. John Bruni, the author of Dong of Frankenstein, Poor Bastards and Rich Fucks, and Tales of Questionable Taste returns to tell a tale of love, redemption, madness, loss, fear, faith and above all else, survival. Brian Keene, author of The Rising and The Complex, says, “John Bruni is a nice kid. He’s one of the next generation that I like. He’s actually one of the people I like in this genre, and I don’t like anybody.”

Mickey Scarlet is a man who, as a child, had a beast beaten into him by his father. As an adult he uses this beast to help him survive as a cop and later as an ex-convict, but that’s not easy when Lucifer Robinson offers to keep him on retainer for any number of illegal acts he needs performed. Mickey has no idea who is really in charge of this enterprise, but he finds himself lost in a phantasmagorical world filled with monsters and lowlifes while all he wants to do is find his estranged wife so he can finally meet his child.
John Bruni, author of POOR BASTARDS AND RICH FUCKS and DONG OF FRANKENSTEIN, brings us a horrifying tale about cycles of abuse and the horrors it creates.
Brian Keene, author of PRESSURE and THE RISING, says about John Bruni, “Stylistically, he’s a blend of Edward Lee and Jeremy Robert Johnson.”

Only 2 left.

For fans of the deranged, the utterly weird, and most certainly the unspeakable... Bizarro Pulp Press brings you a buffet of curdled imagination and warped creativity of John Bruni. 21 stories ranging from monstrous genitalia and violent retirees, GG Allin, and Jesus Christ.

Brian Keene, author of The Rising, says, "Stylistically, he's a blend of Edward Lee and Jeremy Robert Johnson."

You've been warned.

You think you know the Lewis and Clark expedition, but you don't. Hi Ziege is a man who thought he was wasting his life until he discovered that he could do so much more by joining the Discovery Corps from such a nameless place as La Charrette. Everything that Lewis and Clark and all the others left out of their journals is recorded here, including their experiences with aliens and bigfoot (bigfeet?). "Stylistically, he's a blend of Edward Lee and Jeremy Robert Johnson." -Brian Keene, author of The Rising and The Seven "John Bruni has combined historical and hysterical into a bizarro-themed redneck autobiography for the age of the absurd. A gory, nasty, wild bout of fun we didn't know we needed, until the blood and moonshine spilled from the pages in front of us and congealed into one hell of a cocktail." -Michael Allen Rose, author of Boiled Americans

William King is a Missouri guerilla turned bank robber trying to find a peaceful life on a Texas ranch. Eagle Talon is a Comanche warrior swearing vengeance on those who killed his sons. Juan Moreno is a bandit headed home to Mexico with visions of a hero's welcome. Corbin Mathers is a former slave and a walking dead man searching for the outlaw who killed him and his son. These four men will collide in an orgy of blood and gore and violence, and none of them will escape unscathed.

John Bruni, author of The Life and Times of Hieronymus Aloysis Ziege and Tales of Unspeakable Taste, brings you a cross between The Outlaw Josey Wales and The Searchers by way of Steinbeck and Fulci. This is no mere splatter western. This is Trail of Blood.

Layne Gates has done it all. Murder, cannibalism, sadism, you name it. His most recent racket: kidnap or purchase young women known as oracles so he can cut their eyes out, thus intensifying their gifts. He then uses them to extort money out of people who will suffer some misfortune by offering a way to avoid it. The only problem is, one of his oracles has discorporated and is now a part of his ship, the Mammon.

Meet Corbin Marsters, a former slave and gladiator who now buys slaves to set them free. He offers them a job hunting the scum of the universe on his ship, the Aurelius. Ketchum is his new shipmate, and their target: Layne Gates.

Tessa Reeves is sent west by her pimp as a mail order bride to a goofy loser of a farmer. He sells her to a Comanche flesh merchant named Iron Trail, who teaches her how to survive in the wilderness. It's only the beginning of the horrors she faces as she tries to stay alive long enough to wreak vengeance on her tormentors.

John Bruni, author of Eye Cutter returns to the world of Trail of Blood to tell a tale of horror and woe, gore and depravity, devastation and revenge.

OK, now for the two exceptions:

Having twice dealt with fear and loathing on the Hunter S. Thompson highway into the savage heart of gonzo dreams, John Bruni, Kevin Candela & Kent Hill (together this time with Neil Sanzari) head down to the old haunts and watering holes of the dirty old man, the drinker, the writer, the fighter, the lover . . . the one and only Charles Bukowski. In a quartet of tribute tales from these authors that both idolize, and have recently encountered Hank's works, the voice of the poet laureate of the gutter is restored, so that once more the good duker . . . can take a swing.

I'm willing to let this go for $7, no shipping. I've carted this book around for the last two years, and no one wants to buy it. I don't get it. I personally love this book, and it was a great deal of fun introducing Buk to Rod Serling, not from The Twilight Zone, but from Night Gallery. But I'm starting to think that people either don't know who Bukowski was, or they just don't care about him. I'll sweeten the deal: I'll throw in a signed manuscript of an unpublished story if you'll take it off my hands.

Tom Miller is a man unsatisfied with his marriage. He fantasizes about his secretary, wishing for there to be something more between them. Becky Rashida is a woman who has just been dumped by her boyfriend before a very important moment in her life. Reggie Bastion is an angry incel who wants sex slaves and in particular wants to fuck his HR rep. Col. David Morgan is a closeted gay man who yearns for his assistant, Corp. Thomas Pedersen. These people are all going to get their wishes, but they are not going to like it. For today is September 11, 2001, and they all work either at the Twin Towers or the Pentagon. And the planes are on their way . . .

I'm friends with Rosemynd Kant. She's pretty ballsy, especially considering the title of her next work, which I am absolutely not going to sell if she actually goes through with it. Long story short, this is 9/11 porn. She sent me a bunch of copies to sell at the shows I go to, and I'm down to the final copy. It's signed. But I've been down to this last copy for about three or four years. No one wants it. It's a pretty funny book, and it's not making fun of the victims of the terrorist attack. But understandably, not many people are willing to go that far with her thought process on this. If you want it, you can have it for $5, no shipping. Or hell, if you want the Bukowski anthology, I'll throw this in for free, but you don't have to take it, as it's a touchy subject. Rosie knows she's insane, and she leans into it pretty intensely.

OK, that's the spiel. If you want something, let me know. The prices will be good for the rest of the month. Contact me however you know me, or if you're new to my work, please leave a note in the comments.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you all. Goodnight, fuckers.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1024: OVER NOW

 To be read to this song.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm going to miss that place.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1023: A MONUMENT TO SATAN

Hello Satan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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