GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #206: THINGS FROM MY CHILDHOOD THAT I HAVEN'T THOUGHT ABOUT MUCH UNTIL NOW

It's kind of weird. I remembered something from my childhood that I haven't thought about for years, and it's made me think more, deeper, until I remembered other things from my past.


The thing that started this was seeing a kid the other day waving to the engineer of a train. It's slipped my mind, but I remember doing the exact same thing when I was a kid. Every time I saw a train, I waved to the engineer. He always waved back.


I also remember putting pennies on the train tracks, not to derail the trains like some of my more sadistic friends, but to flatten them. And it always worked.


I remember when my grandfather used to pick me up to bring me to elementary school. He had this weird thing that he did that I don't think he even remembers now. First he would hold up a thumbs up. Then he'd stick out his index finger like a finger gun. And then he'd open the rest of his hand. I would do the same thing back to him, and he'd smile and clap me on the shoulder.


Gramps also used to do a, I guess it's a human pyramid, with me and my cousin. He'd be on the bottom. As the oldest I'd be on his back. My cousin was the youngest at the time, so he was the top.


The time that my stepfather was dragging me to a grocery store, and we were at a street corner where we had to wait for the cars to go by. I put my thumb out like I'd seen in movies, not realizing that it was the universal sign of hitchhiking. My stepfather slapped the shit out of me for that, and I've never done it again.


My cousin and I watching the trucks go by just outside our grandparents' backyard. We were impressed by the passing of these things on the expressway. And then a wooden wall was constructed between us and the trucks, and we were depressed.


My grandmother tells me a story about the time, back in the 'Sixties, when there was no wall, and there was a horrible storm. A family abandoned their car on the expressway and eventually wandered into the backyard seeking aid and succor. They got it, too. Different times.


Behind my elementary school there were train tracks and a tiny bridge we could go under to avoid them. But there was a yellow line we had to stand behind if there was a train going through. We didn't pay much attention. It was thrilling to be in the underpass while a train thundered overhead.


The snake that attacked my one and only friend in first grade. He showed me the slashes in his elbow. There were only supposed to be garter snakes back there. Maybe not that one time, though.


Then there was the moment I met my best friend in third grade. We fell in together because he could fold his eyelids back. Everyone else found it gross, but I thought it was cool as shit.


My cousin and I used to hang out in the rec room of our grandparents' place, and when we had to take a piss we'd just do it through the screen door. We got away with it for a long time, too.


There was also a scary crawlspace there.


It's surprising all of the things I forgot when I was a kid. Back when I was let loose in the world when I was done with school, no parental supervision, just so long as I was back for the six o'clock siren. If I was late, I was fucked.


What do you remember from when you were a kid that you haven't thought about in ages?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #205: MY GOOD DEED FOR THE DAY PT. 2

Remember a while ago when I did a good deed and it felt great? You can read about it here. It feels pretty good doing good deeds. It's kind of addictive because of the dopamine release you get in your head when you see positive results. It's kind of like when you see that your Facebook post got 100 likes. Or maybe President Obama responds to your Tweet. And so on.


A couple of weeks ago I found myself in a position to do another good deed. But it started out from a horrible thing I did.


Not last Saturday, but the Saturday before I went to Skippy's for a burger. They've got a great burger, even though it's only a charburger. Anyway, I could have sworn they were open until ten on the weekends. I arrived at the drive thru and made my order. Only then did I see the sign that says they close at nine on every night except Sunday (8 pm). I looked at the clock. It was 8:59 pm.


Oh fuck. I just became *that* guy. You should never EVER show up to a restaurant at literally the last minute and order something that takes more than a minute to prepare. It takes them five minutes to make a burger. Oh goddam, I felt like such a heel. If I'd seen that sign before making the order I would have gone somewhere else. I could only imagine the cook cursing my name--if they knew my name, that is.


I paid at the window, and I felt like an utter asshole. Then I awkwardly sat in my car, waiting, feeling like shit.


Out of the corner of my eye I saw a skunk starting to pick around a car parked behind the building. Something scared it, and it backed away with its tail in the air. I thought for a moment it was going to spray, and I was in the direct line. I did not like the idea of my car smelling like skunk. I can control skunks, but I can only use simple commands. They might not listen to me if I said more than STOP. And GO AWAY. I wrote a Goodnight, Fuckers about it near the beginning of the run, but I can't find it, and I'm too lazy to dig that deep. If you have a better discipline, check it out. It's there somewhere.


The skunk came back to the car and poked around more. It pawed the wheels. It sniffed around the back. And then I saw it go under the car. Whoever owned this car obviously worked at the restaurant, due to the parking place. I was horrified at the idea that the owner would come out after their shift, not knowing there was a skunk under their car. I kept seeing them getting squirted and spending the next few days trying to get away from the stench.


The guy at the drive thru gave me my burger. I asked him, "Do you know who owns that car?"


"Uh, yeah, I know who owns it." He said it nervously, like maybe he thought someone had damaged it. Or maybe someone was going to sue the owner. I felt I had to immediately allay his fears.


"I just saw a skunk go under the car. I'd appreciate it if you'd warn whoever owns it so they don't get sprayed tonight." Imagine working at your shitty day job, and when you're finally ready to go home to some relaxation you get sprayed by a skunk. It's ugly, man. UGLY.


He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key fob. He pressed a button, and the car turned on. It took me a moment to realize that he was the owner. I said, "Oh! Uh, in that case, be careful, man."


"Hopefully the sound of the car drove it off. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Can I get you a drink? We have Pepsi products."


I already had my drink, but I thanked him anyway.


"You really saved me, man. Thanks for warning me."


No problem. I drove off kind of giddy from doing the right thing. It felt amazing. It felt so good that I was halfway home before I realized that this thing had started with an asshole move on my part.


I vaguely believe that the universe balances out. I don't think there's a force behind that, or a god, or whatever. But I do think that for every shitty thing you do, you do a good thing, even if it's an accident.


I do a lot more good deeds than I mention, but that one felt the best. I felt like I made up for driving the cook a little crazy with my last minute burger. (The cook was, after all, the guy I saved from a spraying. He wasn't just the guy at the drive thru window.)


Do good deeds. It feels really fucking good. You'll see.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #204: GHOSTS OF THE CIVIL DEAD

I went out to Pennsylvania this weekend. It's the third time I've been to one of the original 13 colonies. I tend not to count New York because I was only at the airport there for a connecting flight to Ireland. The other was Georgia. A friend lived in Tennessee back then, and the only airport he could get me at was in Atlanta.


But Pennsylvania is waaaaay better than Georgia. Georgia is a shithole. No offense to anyone who lives there, but the Civil War, in particular William T. Sherman, really did a number on that place. It never recovered. There is a sense of dilapidation about the place. Of desolation and decay. Of death. It's falling apart and has no hope of ever recovering. The Reconstruction left that state behind.


Kevin Strange and I rode into PA at night, so we didn't get to see a lot of it. I'll talk more about our trip later and possibly in installments, but I saw a lot of interesting things in PA. It's just as old as Georgia, but there isn't the same feeling of abandonment.


I live in Illinois, in a suburb of Chicago, and around here we don't give a shit about old things. If something turns fifty, it's obsolete. We have to tear that shit down and build something new. There are no old houses or structures in my town. I live in a townhouse made in the 'Fifties, and it's falling apart. I imagine that very soon we're going to get a visit from an Elmhurst official wishing to buy this place so they can tear it down.


PA has no desire to do that kind of thing.


Let me explain. Kevin's GPS took us off course for a McDonald's run, and as we tried to get back on track it told us to take the back streets. All we saw was corn. That's old hat for me. I live on the Suburban Prairie, and corn is fucking everywhere as soon as you travel beyond the 'burbs.


But Kevin's GPS was telling me to go straight down one road, and all I saw was what looked like a house in the middle of the road. It seemed like the GPS was asking me to blaze down the driveway and plow through this house. I had The Fear.


It took me a moment to realize that it wasn't a house. It was a covered fucking bridge. I'd never seen one in real life before. When I was a kid we had a . . .  I don't know what to call it. It's not a painting. It's not a sculpture. It's a work of art. It's . . . I don't know. But it depicts a covered bridge. I remember it from "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." I remember it from Joe Hill's NOS4A2. But in real life? I had no idea these things existed. Awed, I drove through it.


I was kind of excited to see any evidence of the Amish. Again, I've only seen the kind of thing in movies or literature. We caught a fleeting glimpse of a dude in a horse-drawn buggy. We don't have that kind of thing where I live.


We were staying with Mike Lombardo. On Saturday night we were walking through his area of town, and I couldn't help but notice how old every house was. In Elmhurst they would all be torn down or labeled historical locations and thus protected. In PA they were just business as usual. I was absolutely fascinated. Kevin and Lombardo were lost in conversation, but I couldn't help but stare at and admire these old buildings that had modern people living in them.


And then we drove home. We started out pre-dawn, but as we went the sun rose and illuminated everything we'd missed on the way in. We saw the mountains we drove under thanks to the tunnels that had us thinking about DAYLIGHT and that one scene from THE STAND. But more importantly I noted the fog. It was everywhere. It clung to the mountains and in some cases shrouded them so heavily we didn't even know they were there until later. It was haunting.


We drove close to Gettysburg. I kind of wanted to see the old battlefield. I own a bullet from the site during the Civil War. I couldn't help but think about the history that lurked in that fog, hidden within the mountains. I don't know if there were any unrecorded skirmishes that happened in those areas we saw, but they certainly had soldiers marching through there on their way to killing. Getting killed. Or maybe getting wounded enough for a good ol' fashioned field amputation, which I learned a lot about from going to the Mutter Museum in Philly.


Years ago there was a movie called GHOSTS OF THE CIVIL DEAD. I would not have learned about it if not for Nick Cave being an actor in it. I love that title. It gives the perfect phrase to what I felt as I drove through the foggy mountains. I could feel the history around me, inarticulate in its ways but a presence nonetheless.


I love living in Elmhurst. When I was younger and thought that writers got good money for what they did (thanks, Stephen King . . .) I fantasized about my living arrangements. I would spend my springs and autumns in Elmhurst (because it's the perfect environment for those seasons), and I would live in Las Vegas during the winter, Canada in the summer. But honestly I've never seen myself seriously living anywhere other than Elmhurst. This place is in my blood. My bones. My soul.


For the first time in my life I considered living elsewhere. I loved the environment of Pennsylvania so much that I wanted to pull up roots and travel across the country. It's a wonderful place. It's got a great vibe. It has the ghosts of the civil dead.


I'll probably stick with Elmhurst, but goddam it felt good to be in Pennsylvania.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #203: GOODBYE TO THE PAST

I remember when I was a kid the only booze I was exposed to was Jim Beam mostly because of my grandfather. It was his drink of choice. Every night he'd built his own sub sandwich and top it off with shots of Jim Beam. Later my stepfather would keep a bottle of Jim Beam for night whenever he got off of work. He held a lot of different jobs because he kept getting fired. He was a scientist when I first met him, but he worked as a cabbie for a while and he worked at a paint store and so on and so forth. But that bottle remained the same.

As a result my first taste of booze as a discerning adult was Jim Beam. I stuck to what I liked at first, but when I saw the variety available I jumped in. I quickly discovered Wild Turkey 101 within the first year it was released, and I fell in love. It's been my favorite ever since. I think Booker's is even better, but it's too expensive for me to drink more than maybe once every two years.

But Jim Beam will always have a place in my heart. Imagine my joy when a friend of mine inherited a bunch of booze from the 'Seventies a while back. One of them was the bottle of Jim Beam you see above.

He shared, for which I am eternally grateful. My fellow drunkards know that Jim Beam documents their family on the side of their bottle. Currently Jim Beam has seven faces on their label. The one my friend shared with me?

Five. How cool is that? Also I noticed something I'd never seen as a child because I didn't have enough booze knowledge. The original Jim Beam had a proof of 86. Today it has a proof of 80, which is the industry standard. When the fuck did this happen? I have a history of protesting Jack Daniel's because they quietly lowered their proof from 90 to 80, and when MODERN DRUNKARD called them out on it, they acted in a very snobby way. They were of the opinion that MDM didn't know what the fuck they were talking about because they weren't distillers. Well . . . the writers at MDM were your customers. I was, too. Not anymore.

Jim Beam quietly lowered their proof from 86 to 80. No one ever called them out on it, so they had no opportunity to respond in a snobby fashion. I searched the internet far and wide, but I've never been able to find an explanation. It's almost like it never happened. But I had the, uh, well. Proof. Sorry. I tried to avoid a pun, and there was no pun intended. There wasn't a way around it.

My friend gave me the bottle, and I had about an inch left at the bottom. Vintage Jim Beam. I intended to save it for a special occasion. Earlier this week, however, I decided to down it. I'm going on a road trip tomorrow that could be a great help to my writing career, and I decided to celebrate.

The thing is, no one is likely to drink vintage Jim Beam from here on out. It's all been drunk, right? It was the end of an era. Whenever I do something I know is going to be the passing of a way of life I like to listen to my favorite song in the world. I don't listen to it often because I don't want it to wear out. As your physician I recommend you follow suit.

How was it? It fucking burned so hard I had to flinch. I'm used to high proof booze, but this had nothing to do with potency. They used to make booze with a tougher bite. It reminded me of something else. It tasted a lot like Jim Beam Black. Surprise! JBB is 86 proof. Hm . . . The only difference is that what I drank had a sting that the Black doesn't have. The closest you can get to the classic is JBB, though. I highly recommend it.

Remember when booze had a sticker as a seal instead of a plastic ring?

Oh yeah. Those were the days. It's making a comeback, but no one is confident enough to abandon the plastic ring in such situations.

Goddam. That one inch of vintage Jim Beam was fucking awesome. Sorry folks. I was the last to have it. I'm tempted to mention a story of mine from a while back about a similar thing. Ah hell, the magazine is out of print, so it's not really a plug. It was in THE BRACELET CHARM Winter 2010. "From the Vineyard of Eden." A private investigator is hired by a snob to procure a bottle of wine on auction. This wine was made thousands of years ago from the grapes of the literal Eden. This guy had a hard-on for the oldest alcoholic beverage known to humanity. Spoiler alert: when he finally got it, it tasted like shit, but he'd lied to himself enough so that he believed it was the best ever.

But this Jim Beam I'm talking about? It really was good. It's better than I can explain here. I wish you could all taste it.

But it was only one inch, and unlike my friend, I'm pretty stingy when it comes to once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Sorry. But take my word for it, it was fucking awesome.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #202: I RODE WITH JESSE JAMES

I'm a huge fan of westerns. Those of you who know me know that and probably look the other way. When I was a kid I loved all the classics and GUNSMOKE and RAWHIDE and THE LONE RANGER and all of that. But my interest waned as I grew older. It was practically dead by the time UNFORGIVEN came out.


I saw that one in the theater. Amazing experience. At the time I believed it to be the last great western, and I gave up on the genre. So did most of America. Every once in a while we'd get something like, say, AMERICAN OUTLAWS, but for the most part the western was gone.



Fast forward a few years. I started reading PREACHER by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon. They reawakened my interest in westerns. I looked back at the old movies and TV shows I loved as a kid, and it all came back to me. I loved the genre again, and I desperately hoped for a resurrection.


I think we might be on the cusp of a revival. THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN is back in headlines, and WESTWORLD is posed to become HBO's next greatest hit. Tarantino put out a new Django movie, and THE H8FUL EIGHT was fucking amazing, especially with a score by Ennio Morricone. That makes me so happy.


When I was a kid I didn't read westerns. I only watched them. When I rediscovered the western I started reading them starting with GONE TO TEXAS from BF Carter. (Side note: I recently discovered that Carter was a white supremacist. That came out of left field for me. His Josey Wales books are arguments for the fair treatment of Native Americans. I can't believe a racist wrote those two books. But, well, it's historical record that he was in the KKK.)


I dug into Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour and everything else. Fucking Larry McMurtry, guys. Read LONESOME DOVE. It'll change your life. By the way, if you're wondering I would choose L'Amour as my favorite western writer. Read his nonfiction book EDUCATION OF A WANDERING MAN, and you'll understand why. Frederick Faust, better known as Max Brand, was a beast of a writer. He could write novels in weekends. That's a pulp writer for you. But L'Amour was the best. Interestingly enough, he was a member of the Communist Party for a while with Jim Thompson, my favorite crime writer. Very unusual for a writer so many patriotic readers identify with.


Not too long ago I finished another collection of L'Amour's hard-to-find westerns from his pulp days. It reinforces something I've noticed in a lot of other westerns: many western protagonists have a history fighting for the Confederacy, and very few of them believed in the racist views. They looked at themselves as rebels. They wanted their own way of life. They didn't condone slavery; they just wanted to live free, and they didn't want to be under the yoke of the Union.


Also, just about everyone rode with Jesse James. From Josey Wales to Jonah Hex, they put on their gray uniforms and fought by the side of the boys from ol' Missour-ah. If Jesse James had really ridden with all of these fictional heroes (or anti-heroes, as per your perception) he would have whipped the shit out of the North.


Unless some of these guys are talking about the bank/train robbery days. In which case Jesse James would have beaten the daylights out of the Pinkertons. Never mind fuckin' Robert Ford.


If all of those protagonists existed in real life, Jesse James would have been Al Capone before Al was even born.


Something to ponder for those who give enough of a shit about the western.


PS: The character of Jesse James has been portrayed maybe a thousand times in books and cinema. My favorite, however, is the movie version of THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD. I haven't read the book, but from what I understand the movie is probably the closest we will ever come to the truth. If you haven't seen it, you should. Check out the masterful score by Nick Cave and violinist Warren Ellis. It's my second favorite score of all time. #1 is Ennio Morricone's THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY. #3 is THE DARK HALF from Christopher Young. #4 is . . . I'm not going to sit here all night. Just fucking watch the movie. Enjoy the score. Remember the western. 'Cause it's coming back, and it might be here for a while. The blues and the birth of rock and roll. And the western. True American art forms.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #201: A HAWK FROM A HANDSAW

Good evening from the Suburban Prairie. Yeah, I'm not giving up on that. There will be the Thames Delta, and there will be the Suburban Prairie. Get used to it.


Having lived on the prairie my entire life the sight of a hawk on the wing is not a strange one. Yet . . . yet! I have never seen a hawk up close. Not in real life. Sure, in pictures and movies. But not before my very eyes.


Last week I was in the drive thru at Taco Bell, which is unfortunately a common thing for me. As I was waiting in line I saw a GIANT FUCKING THING glide down from the sky and land between bushes off to my right. It took me a moment to realize that it was a hawk. It looked as big as a Canadian goose. It was not fucking around. I watched it, fascinated as I always am by nature. I barely remember handing over my money and receiving my Crunchy Cheesy Core Burrito. I watched that fucker as closely as I could. Usually I eat my fast food on the road, but I decided to park as close to the hawk as I could without frightening it off, just so I could watch it and see what the fuck it was up to.


I parked at a close but respectable distance. It didn't get spooked. It sat still, not so much as turning its head. And then it pounced into a bush. A flock of sparrows fled for their lives. The bush rustled a lot, and the hawk emerged with its prize. It sat there right in front of me, like it knew I wanted a show, pecking at whatever it had caught. Then more birds flew into the bush, and the hawk went back to work. He's a doer. He doesn't wait for shit to come to him. He goes out and gets it.


Except this time the sparrows seemed to have outnumbered him. He took to wing. DIRECTLY FUCKING AT ME.


For a moment I could swear this fucking guy was going to dive-bomb my windshield. He wouldn't be the first bird to do this. But at the last second he pulled up, and I got the perfect view of an ascending hawk, mere inches from my face. If not for my car I could have reached up and snatched him from the sky.


But he would not have liked that. Nor would I, after he'd had his way with me.


I sat there with my heart beating, my mouth full of burrito. And then I realized, fuck, I should have had my camera. That would have been a wonderful shot.


But fuck that. This one's just for me. It's special. Sorry, folks. That's just the way it's got to be.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #200: HISTORY IS NEVER FAR BEHIND US

I'm a weird bastard when it comes to writing. Very few of you know of my literary pieces. It's a shame that THE BRACELET CHARM Winter 2012 isn't available anywhere because one of my stories in there is germane to tonight's GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS. Anyone ever read "The Hand That Shook the World?" It's the story of a WWII soldier who comes home at the end of the war and tells a bunch of lies about what he did overseas to get free drinks. He was really just a paper pusher. He saw zero action. And then he sees an ancient man in a wheelchair who told him a story about being a drummer boy at Gettysburg and having actually seen Lincoln deliver his famous address. Later in life, our soldier realizes that the old man was just as full of shit as he was.


I kinda-sorta based it on a supposedly true story I'd read in READER'S DIGEST about a Civil War soldier meeting with someone who fought for George Washington. The major thing to take away from this is that both scenarios I have just described are POSSIBLE. Keep in mind that former US president John Tyler still has grandchildren alive today. He was the 10th president of this nation. He was a Whig, for Christ's sake.


The point is, history is never far behind us.


I was reminded of this recently when my grandmother found something in the backyard. She showed me the badge in the above photo. She thought it was from the Indian Wars. She thinks it was from a US soldier, who left it behind after they raided the Potawatomis in the area. However, if memory serves correctly, Elmhurst is one of the few areas around here that wasn't stolen from the Potawatomis (or anyone, for that matter). There never was a settlement here. In Oak Brook? Yes. Not here. It's possible that they passed through here, as it is possible that the US Army passed through here. Every once in a while the neighbor finds some arrow heads in her backyard, and they didn't just come out of nowhere.


But this? This is different. I looked this thing over and over, and I very quickly surmised that it never belonged to a US soldier from that time. Look at that gun. They didn't have weapons like that back then. But then something else caught my eye, and I almost wished that it *had* belonged to a US soldier. It would be so much easier to categorize, then.


Look at the eagle on top of the thing. Then look at what it's holding in it's talons.


That's right. A motherfucking swastika.


It would be so much easier to explain if it was a US Army badge. But a Nazi badge? That's a bit harder to figure out. That leaves me with an interesting mystery. I love mysteries, but unfortunately I can never solve this one.


That leaves me with speculation. What are the odds that it came from an actual Nazi who moved to the states after the war? It's possible, I guess, but it's wildly improbable. Maybe a WWII memorabilia collector lost it back there. Again, unlikely. But here's a very real possibility, and it's the only explanation that makes sense.


It was lost there by a WWII vet, and it was taken off the freshly killed corpse of a Nazi rifleman. Possibly the vet who dropped it was the one who killed the Nazi in the first place.


But who could that vet be? The house has only had one owner besides my family in its entire existence. There was a very old couple who moved in when the house was built in the 'Fifties, and they sold to my grandfather when I was a kid.


The man who lived here was EXACTLY the age of someone who would have fought in WWII. It matches perfectly. But . . . well, he's no longer around. Neither is his wife. There is no way for me to track them down and ask about it. I don't know if they have kids, but I don't think it would matter much. WWII guys just didn't talk about the shit they did over there. They needed their loved ones to think that it was a noble war, and that they were heroes. Real heroes in war are very, very rare, no matter what our government says. Why do you think so many soldiers become drunks or junkies or they commit suicide?


On a side note, before I get people complaining about what I just said, I *do* believe WWII was a noble war, but I'm not stupid enough to think that our guys didn't do a lot of scary, awful shit overseas.


If I'm right, this story died with him. I'm never going to know how that Nazi badge wound up in my hand. And I would love love LOVE to know. I'm a huge fan of history, and I would love the story behind this.


History is never far behind us. Only recently did the last WWI soldier pass away. The Greatest Generation is not quite as plentiful as they once were. Vietnam soldiers are old men, and Desert Storm soldiers aren't getting any younger. I held a piece of Nazi history in my hand, and it isn't the first time. My step-grandfather gave me a lot of old coins, and quite a few of them have swastikas on them. To say nothing of the arrow heads I've found since I was a kid. I have a bullet from the Civil War (unfired). I have a hunk of fossilized shit. Who knows what lies a mere foot under your lawn? Where I sit right now used to be a sea millions of years ago. I've held the fossils of trilobites that were found here. I touched the bones of a woolly mammoth from millions of years ago. It's all within our grasp.


But it's slipping.


Without history we have no future. #NeverForget has been applied to a lot of atrocities in our past, but it should be applied to everything. Even something as silly as the founding of Facebook will be important to the generations that come after us. I wonder what the future archaeologists will think of us. When I was in high school I used to joke that they would find all of these McDonald's golden arches, and they'll assume that these fast food restaurants were our places of worship. Maybe it's not so much of a joke than a pretty good guess.


Which is why #NeverForget is so important. If we forget, there is no reason for us to relearn. Let's make it easy on our descendants, huh?


This is the 200th episode of GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS. Thanks for reading, and I hope we're around for #300. Hugs and kisses to you all.