GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS RECAP 7-11-14

In case you don't stay up late enough, I'd like to mention that I've been doing a nightly blog the very instant before I go to bed. So here's a recap of the week for the early birds (who probably did not get this particular worm).


1. WRITING AND CUMMING: In which I discuss doing both at the same time.

2. WHAT WOULD BRUCE WILLIS DO? In which I fantasize about fighting terrorists at the office.

3. SAVING THE WORLD: Why I watch TYRANT, and why I leave the world the fuck alone.

4. THE MONSTER IN THE SEWERS: My childhood memories of the the monster in the sewers of Elmhurst.

5. I AM AN UTTER BASTARD: Proof that my friends shouldn't trust me to regulate their booze intake.


Stay tuned every night. I usually post around midnight. Haven't missed a night yet. Also, you should check out the blogs that inspired me to do this: Warren Ellis and Brian Keene.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #5: I AM AN UTTER BASTARD

Those who know me now would find it hard to believe, but once upon a time, I didn't believe in drinking and doing drugs. I had no problem with others doing those things, as I've always believed in the freedom to get fucked up, but back when I was a teenager, I decided that I didn't want to pollute my body. This is hilarious, considering it's coming from a dummy who ate a McDonald's dinner every night for six straight years. No shit, I never missed a night. But other than fast food, I didn't put any other harmful things in my body. I didn't even take aspirin when I had a headache.


However, I DID encourage my friends to get as fucked up as humanly possible. I remember senior year of high school. I was sitting in a friend's bedroom--I won't mention who, because I don't know if he'd be cool with me saying so--with Robert Tannahill, my artist on THE COCAINE! BROS. and my hetero-lifemate. (I mention him because I'm certain he wouldn't give a fuck.) They were broke and couldn't afford to buy anything that would get them nice and fucked up, so they decided to huff some Glade. That sounded incredibly dangerous to me, but far be it for me to stop a man from being inebriated.


I did what any responsible friend would do: I got them into a Glade-huffing contest. Who could suck down air freshener for the longest? As you can imagine, this couldn't be determined in one round. I sat watching them do this for at least a half an hour, and I couldn't believe their capacity for this. I kept time, because back then, I was a pretentious fuck who carried a pocket watch on a chain. To the best of my memory, my nameless friend won, but at a huge price. He was fucked the fuck up. He was so far gone, he couldn't function. So Rob, who has done harder things than huffing Glade and was thus still capable of fairly clear thought, mercilessly mocked him.


This brings to mind another memory: later, Rob and our friend lived together briefly. Our friend left his liquor out, and Rob (at the tender age of 19) decided he was going to get drunk on Cuervo. He put me in charge of pouring shots. I'm pretty sure he came close to finishing off that bottle. In those days, I didn't have a car, so I had to depend on the kindness of strangers (and sometimes my grandparents) to drive me around. (Hey, I was only 18. I worked at the local library earning minimum wage at the time, which was $4.75 an hour.) It was so late, I had to walk home. That's OK. It was only two miles.


Rob, hammered as much as he was, had to walk me home. So we walked down the train tracks to Spring Road, where we intended to take the Prairie Path back to my place. However, he was so fucked up he started puking. Every few steps, we would have to stop so he could vomit on the sidewalk, or in an alley, or even in potted plants maintained by the Elmhurst Park District. Before long, I had to hold him up as we walked. I remember some drunken college kids coming out of Doc Ryan's calling us "faggots," and Rob tried to get away from me so he could kick their asses. Finally, I couldn't support his boozy frame anymore, so we sat on the bench by the gazebo where Spring intersects with the Prairie Path. He spent the next hour puking, and then he got up, leaving his wallet, cigarettes and lighter on the bench. I gathered his things and followed him. In the end, I wound up walking HIM home before turning back and going to my own place by myself.


The next day, he was soooooo fucking hungover. He called me to give me shit, and at that moment, he revealed to me that the reason he put me in charge of pouring shots was because he thought I'd be compassionate enough to cut him off if he got too drunk.


Whoops. You live and you learn.


But I'm such an utter bastard that in response, I laughed. To this day, if I'm walking down Spring Road with someone who knows Rob, I will play a game with them. It's called Guess Where Rob Puked. Here's the thing: you can't lose. He puked EVERYWHERE.


I'd say sorry, but . . . well, I'm still an utter bastard.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #4: THE MONSTER IN THE SEWERS

When I was in first grade, I had a friend. This was highly unusual, and our friendship only lasted a year. This is because this kid wanted to be cool. He was a bit of an outsider, rough at the edges, but he wanted to fit in. I was an albatross around his neck, and it took him that long to figure out that he was never going to be cool if he kept being my friend. That's all right, I guess. By third grade, he'd moved to some other city, and I never saw him again.


Tonight I went out for my semi-nightly walk, and my route took me past my old elementary school, which is why I suddenly started thinking of this kid. One of the most interesting things he ever did was tell me a story. (Telling me a story goes a long way with me. Always has, always will.) One day during recess, while all the other kids were fucking around on the swings and the monkey bars--back when the only thing to break a three-foot-tall kid's drop from a ten-foot height was a thin lining of wood chips--him and I were hanging out by the chain link fence that prevented most kids from playing on the train tracks that ran behind the school. Here, he told me that beneath our very feet, a monster lived. It looked a lot like the popular depiction of the devil, and it liked to kidnap kids and bring them down into the sewers, where it would stick them on a spit--and I mean putting the spit up through their assholes until it comes out their mouths--and roast them before eating them.


Keep in mind, I was six years old at the time. When I was six, it was 1984. IT wasn't published for another two years, so I had no way of preparing myself for something like this.


But I still didn't buy it. I gave him points for creativity, but I didn't fall for it, no matter how sincerely he came off. He then told me that if you listen at the sewer lid, sometimes you can hear the monster laughing. Being of a scientific mind even back then, I stooped down to the sewer and listened, expecting my friend to jump on me or scream or something to scare the shit out of me. But he didn't do any of those things. He listened to the sewer just as earnestly as I did.


We heard nothing.


I wonder a few things. First, whatever happened to this kid? I think he really believed that story he told me. He was a tough bastard, but except for this one instance of imagination, he wasn't very bright. To give you an idea, he's the only person I've ever known who was bitten by a garter snake. SEVERAL TIMES. Do you know how stupid you have to be to be bitten by a garter snake even once? Still, I wonder what he's made of himself.


Secondly, and more importantly, I have to wonder if he made the story up himself or had it told to him by someone else. If it's the latter, that means it's some kind of local urban legend, even if I only heard it once. If it's an urban legend, do the kids at Jefferson Elementary still tell that particular tale? I wonder.


Not enough to actually ask a kid, of course. But still, I wonder.


[BONUS: Some of you may be wondering if tonight, on my semi-nightly walk, while I was thinking of this incident, did I hunt down that sewer lid and take a listen? Of course I did. I strained my ears, trying to hear a laugh, or a crackling fire, or even the squeak of the spit as the monster turned a kid over the flames. All I heard was the distant babble of rainwater making its way to the quarry.]

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #3: SAVING THE WORLD

If you're a decent human being, you want to save the world. We all have our plans on how we would do it. What we would outlaw. What we would decriminalize. Things like that. I've been watching TYRANT, and I enjoy it thoroughly. I couldn't recommend it, because I don't know a lot of people who would like it. I didn't have high hopes from watching the previews, but I was sick when the series premiere aired, and I had nothing to do. So I watched it, and I fell in love with it. Why? Because it satisfies one of my major interests: saving the world. Like I said, we all have solutions to what we perceive to be the world's problems. Unlike most who actually try to put their plans in motion, my hubris (big as it may be) isn't quite large enough. The show features an Arab from an important family who escapes his tradition to live in America. He goes back home for a family wedding, but when his father--the local dictator--dies, he decides to stick around because he thinks he can help make the region a better place. That's very noble, but it depends on a lot of things. What works in America wouldn't work in other places and vice versa. What would I do if I were in charge of the US? I have a lot of ideas, and I think some of them are realistic. Most aren't. If you'll remember from last night, I sometimes think up fantasies to get to sleep whenever I'm not drinking. This is another one of them. I want to solve the world's problems, but what if my perspective is wrong? What if I make things worse? The people who instated the Prohibition of the Great Depression thought they were making things better, but instead they created organized crime. Whoops. Who wants to make things worse? No one. But who knows enough to think things through? What sounds like a good idea could turn out to be absolute shit, and that's why I don't run for office. That's what sets me apart from other idealists. So many people are hell-bent on changing the world to suit their own views that it's scary. For example, I'm an atheist. I think that's a completely reasonable viewpoint, but there are a lot of people--maybe even the majority--who think I'm a danger to society. I don't think I am. I'm pretty sure a lot of people would back me up on that. But sometimes, I'm paralyzed by my own fear that I could be wrong. It makes me bullheaded. I try to be a reasonable person, but I doubt myself a great deal. I doubt others a lot, too.


Hence my life philosophy: just so long as you don't hurt anyone else, you should be able to believe whatever you want. As soon as you hinder another's freedom (and that includes freedom from being hurt by someone else), you can go fuck yourself.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #2: WHAT WOULD BRUCE WILLIS DO?

When I'm not drinking, I'm an insomniac. This means that I'm usually up until about two in the morning, even if I go to bed at midnight. The only thing that helps me finally give in to the sandman is when I make up stories in my head. Not as a professional writer, mind you. I'm talking about fantasies. One of the big ones is the simple what-if question, and the one I keep going back to is this: what if terrorists took over my workplace? How would I respond? Sometimes, I imagine myself in the role of John McClane, dealing all sorts of psychotically violent deaths to scumbags, and others I feel like a reasonable liaison between the bad guys and the hostages, always trying to negotiate for freedom, or at least more comfort in a very uncomfortable position. But I'm sure you can guess that for the most part, the big question on my mind is, "What would Bruce Willis do?" I can't explain why I always come back to this fantasy, but it goes back a loooooong time. When I was in junior high, I wrote a story in which a group of terrorists take over a school (which closely resembles mine), and a group of kids (led by someone who reminds me a great deal of myself) is the only hope to beat the bad guys. I came up with all kinds of crazy shit, like traps we set up using things we found in the chemistry lab. Bombs we created using the gas ovens in the home economics room. And compass points make for excellent stabbing weapons.

I'd blame it all on the Sean Astin film, TOY SOLDIERS, but I'd already acquired this fantasy by the time I first saw it. It only served to reinforce what I already had in my head. Still haven't started drinking Scope to get fucked up, though, so it's not a complete loss . . .

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1: WRITING AND CUMMING

When it comes to physically growing up, I've always been ahead of the curve. I can't remember a time when I couldn't get an erection, and I clearly recall having orgasms at a very young age. I'm talking third grade, or thereabouts. Nothing came out, obviously, but the sensation is identical to the one I get now. One of my earliest writing memories, however, is when I was eight years old. It was late at night, so I was not supposed to be awake. I was in the living room, using my mother's piano bench as a writing table, and I was scribbling away at an Osco tablet of paper by night light. The story? It was a mystery, one of my Hardy Boys rip-offs that I called the Detective Boys. I even remember the scene, clear as day: the Detective Boys were beating the shit out of the school bully. Nothing sexual at all. I had an erection while writing it, which was a common thing at the time, but this is the one and only time I've ever had an orgasm while writing. I didn't even touch my dick. It just happened. Much later in life, I talked with a friend (who will remain nameless) whose passion was playing guitar. One day, he confessed to me that he'd made himself cum while making music. He didn't even touch himself, it just happened. I didn't have the balls to confess my own incident, but of late, it has made me wonder if this doesn't happen more often than one thinks. I know a lot of creative types, across all artistic forms, and I have to ask: has this ever happened to you? Have you ever had an unbidden orgasm while working at your art of choice?

SAME RULES APPLY: My thoughts on FILTH

I’ve been a fan of Irvine Welsh’s work for a while. My favorite of his books was GLUE . . . until I found FILTH. This book didn’t just blow my mind, it raped it and left it full of its vile cum. To those of you who have read this book, you’ll know what I mean when I was disappointed to learn that it was going to be turned into a movie. It’s next to impossible to adapt the book. A good portion of it is narrated by the protagonist’s tapeworm, for fuck’s sake. I was even more disappointed when I learned that James McAvoy was going to be Bruce Robertson. I like McAvoy, but I didn’t think he could pull something like this off.

But you know . . . the idea of FILTH being a movie somewhere out there kind of appealed to me. The more I thought about it, the more I had to see it. I had to see if they could even come close to the book. Because the main character is an absolute cunt. Maybe “cunt” is too kind a word for him.

Not surprisingly, there was no big screen release in the US. It’s purely a Scottish movie. With a protagonist like Bruce? It would not have done well here. But I’m very thankful that Irvine Welsh took it to the big screen at the Music Box in Chicago on June 20, 2014. You bet your ass I was there.

AND I LOVED THE MOVIE.

I was completely wrong about McAvoy. He put in the performance of his life. No one else could have done it.

To those who don’t know, Bruce Robertson is a cop who has a hard-on for a promotion in his department. There are rivals for the position, and he does his absolute best to torpedo them. He sets them up for disaster after disaster, and he manipulates them against one another, all in his attempt to move up in his career.

And why does he want to be a cop? A “friend,” Bladesy, asks him this very question. He answers “police oppression.” “You wanted to stamp it out from the inside?” his friend asks. “No, I wanted to be a part of it.”

Oh yes, and Bruce is making harassing phone calls to Bladesy’s wife, just so he can pretend to investigate it, all in the name of successfully having phone sex with her by tricking her into playing along with the perpetrator.

There is no level of depravity Bruce won’t fall to. He’s also fucking the wife of one of his rivals on the force, and he pretends to be the shoulder to cry on when the guy says he thinks the ol’ bird is cheating on him. Not to mention the underage girl he finds with an older boy. She’s the daughter of an important man, and he promises not to tell her father . . . if she sucks his dick.

Bruce fills his body with booze and drugs, and he exercises his every sexual whim, including masturbating at work. He hates everyone and sabotages them all. Look up “misanthrope” in the dictionary, and you’ll find a picture of him.

Except . . . he’s not all that bad. If he were, FILTH would be unwatchable. No one wants to watch some asshole shit all over everyone for an hour and a half. Like any fascinating, complex characters, he has reasons for being the way he is. In one pivotal scene, he tells a rival that he was once a good man. She tells him she’d heard that. And then, of course, he has to completely alienate her to drive away any moment of slight kindness.

There is the incident involving his brother in his youth. And then there is his family. Oh, his poor family. Those who read the book know what I’m getting at.

McAvoy understands the character down to his core. He becomes Bruce Robertson, not just the lunatic bastard, but also the broken man, the man who believes he is such utter filth that he needs to make sure the rest of the world understands this and never gives him a break. It’s very easy to think of the end of Robert Browning’s poem, “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” when thinking of Bruce: “the last of me, a living frame/for one more picture!”

FILTH is a funny movie. Incredibly funny, even in moments where some people would be shocked. For example, earlier in the movie, a kid with a balloon gives Bruce the finger for no reason. So Bruce takes the balloon from the kid’s hand and lets it float away in the wind. Then, to cement the incident, he gives the kid the finger with both hands. No one would ever condone such behavior, but it’s fucking funny.

Another example: Bruce sets up a dick measuring contest at the workplace holiday party. All the guys go to the copier, scan it, and put it up on the board. The ladies then have to match the dick to the dude. When it’s Bruce’s turn, he hits the ENLARGE button over and over again, just so he can trick the office slut into letting him fuck her, which she does. She begs for his monster cock, and when he puts it in, there is a massively disappointed look on her face. Again, it’s a horrifying scene . . . yet incredibly funny.

But FILTH is also an incredibly sad movie. Bruce is deeply damaged, and he can’t help but take it out on the world. Bladesy, who confesses to Bruce that Bruce is his best friend, gets it the worst. They go on vacation together, and Bruce torments him the whole time. He drugs his drinks and sets him loose on the town, but when Bladesy’s trip turns bad, Bruce abandons him to save his own trip from going bad. In another scene, Bladesy gives him a Christmas gift of top-shelf Scotch. Bruce pretends that he’s going to share it; he pours himself a glass, and then in Bladesy’s glass, he pours some of the cheap shit he keeps around. In yet another scene, unprovoked, Bruce steals Bladesy’s glasses and breaks them before throwing them into the river.

It’s hard to empathize with Bruce. But somehow this movie pulls it off. By the end, you will feel very bad for Bruce. While he is indeed a misanthrope, he is also a walking tragedy. He is an unbalanced man, and he knows it. And he knows he can never be cured.

Those who have read the book will probably wonder how well director and co-screenwriter (with Welsh) Jon S. Baird handled certain integral parts of the book. In regards to the twist: Baird did wonderfully. He came up with an interesting cinematic way of taking care of it.

The tapeworm? Honestly, I liked the tapeworm in the book better. Baird went in another direction, but I respect what he did. I wouldn’t have been satisfied with anything anyone tried, but this was the best anyone could have done. The movie is sometimes interrupted by scenes with Bruce visiting a mad psychiatrist played by Jim Broadbent. There are paintings of tapeworms on his office walls, in case you didn’t figure out that he was supposed to represent the tapeworm. Broadbent goes over the top with his performance. One look in his eyes, and you’ll be convinced you’re in the presence of a psychotic.

The ending? It’s basically the same. The last line of the film makes it slightly different, but I don’t have a problem with it.

I can’t recommend this movie enough. I think it’s edged its way into my top ten favorites. When it comes out on DVD, I’ll be among the first to buy it. For those who can’t wait, you can rent it on Amazon for $6.99. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t advise anyone to pay that much for something you’re not going to own, but in this case, I would say it’s worth the money.

If you’re really lucky, though, the Music Box will have another screening. Don’t count on it, though.